Kelsey Dawn Williamson / Facebook
A mom from Benton, Illinois, hilariously discovered the shirt she ordered for her 3-year-old daughter from a Chinese retailer came with an additional design element that wasn’t originally advertised on its site.
Kelsey Dawn Williamson, 23, told BuzzFeed News she’s profoundly confused and has not stopped laughing since she received the T-shirt order from AliExpress, an online, Etsy-like retailer based in Hangzhou, China, that hosts small businesses.
On May 10, Williamson placed an order for this shirt, which features an iconic image of classic children’s book characters Frog and Toad, for her daughter Salem.
The shirt retails for about $5. AliExpress.com named the shirt — heavily loaded with search engine optimization terms — “Kids Two Frog Riding Design Baby Boys/Girl TShirt Kids Funny Short Sleeve Tops Children Cute T-Shirt.”
“Salem probably has 50-plus different little boutique outfits from my favorite store on AliExpress,” said Williamson.
So she did not expect anything unusual to arrive in the mail.
On Tuesday, however, she opened the package to find the Chinese retailer had taken liberty with 3-year-old Salem’s new shirt by adding a slogan to it.
“I literally did not know how to react so I just took a few moments to stare at it and try to process,” Williamson said.
“Of all the things they could have added, why that? On a children’s-size shirt?” she asked.
(Note: Frog and Toad have become a meme, with “fuck the police” being one of the more popular photoshops that originated on Reddit.)
She said she FaceTimed her husband about it and they “just screamed together.”
“We both just lost it, dying of laughter. All he could say was ‘Oh shit,'” she added.
Williamson said Salem, of course, has no idea what the saying means, and she really likes her new Frog and Toad T-shirt. But Salem’s mom could not help but share it on Facebook with her friends and family. Her post has since gone viral.
Williamson told BuzzFeed News most people are amused by it all. However, she’s received a handful of messages on Facebook from people shaming her and her daughter for her weight.
“People were actually messaging me just to say mean things about her,” she said. “A ton of people calling her fat, asking me what I feed her to make her so big, telling me the shirt I bought was too small.”
She said she almost took the post down because of the harassment. But she’s trying to stay in good spirits about a funny and faulty product that she’s now appreciating more than the originally advertised one.
“I’ve told [Salem], ‘People really like your frog shirt!'” Williamson said, laughing.
“It’s going in her baby box so we can bring it up when she’s older.”
BuzzFeed News has reached out to AliExpress to try to figure out what may have happened with the shirt — and determine whether the design was intentional.