Sunday I reached the end of my meager clothing supply and decided, as many people who’ve been wearing the same pants three days in a row do, to finally do my laundry. I wandered over to the little grocery mart across the street from Columbia and assessed my options. A small container seemed like a good idea, and for whatever reason a bottle of Fab “Sun Shower Fresh” caught my eye. Maybe it was the sunflower packaging. Maybe it was the boast of “Fresh Powerful Clean!” (that’s pretty bad english by the way, but I’ve done enough copywriting to know that grammar doesn’t really apply when trying to sell something). Who knows, but I bought it.

Doing laundry was uneventful, other than the fact that the spin cycle of the washer sounded like a semi-automatic weapon. I suppose even the washing machines are more hardcore in Manhattan. You’d have to be hardcore to keep up with all the other washers here. Anyway, whatever. I did laundry.

All day yesterday I kept getting whiffs of stale urine. I remembered my friend TW telling me that New York in the summer was an oven of piss with $30 drinks, but the smell seemed to be everywhere. It reminded me of the time I accidently tasted chinchilla urine. I was haunted all day by the odor.

This morning when I pulled on my clothes, I realized that the odor was coming from my nice clean shirt. After sniffing through all my laundered clothes, I realized that “Sun Shower Fresh” is a euphamism for “Old Pee Smell.”

It only took me a couple seconds to realize that “Sun Shower Fresh,” and is only a half step away from “Golden Showers.” In fact, “sun shower” could be some sort of code word within the “Please pee on me” fetishist world (I’m not providing a link for that one–do your own search).

If you check out the product press release for Fab “Sun Shower Fresh,” you can read about all the hard work that went into creating this pee-smelling detergent. “In recent years, the home fragrance market has exploded and scent and image-driven personal products have moved from the specialty stores to the mass outlets. Sensorial products have proven that they deliver growth.” One brand specialist enthuses that “With the imagery-driven fragrance of a summer shower, we hope we will make the chore of doing laundry more pleasurable.”

The smell of urine is not pleasurable to me. Maybe they should focus on their niche marketing.