# Striped shirt

[   striped shirt  

Appearance

striped shirt

Slot

shirt

AC

0

Special

get banned from shops

Base price

2 zm

Weight

5

Material

cloth

The striped shirt is a type of shirt added in the Convict Patch, and found in all variants that include the Convict role: UnNetHack, DynaHack, dNetHack, and SlashTHEM.  Convicts begin the game wearing a cursed striped shirt as a prison uniform.
As a part of the Convict's armor ensemble, the striped shirt is equivalent to the existing shirts, the T-shirt and Hawaiian shirt.  It has a base armor count value of 0 (but will contribute its enchantment value to the wearer's AC total) and can be worn under regular torso armor.
What makes this shirt different from the others is that if a shopkeeper sees you wearing an uncovered striped shirt, (s)he will conclude that you are a fugitive from the law and will not merely hike up prices, as with the other shirts, but will actually stand in the doorway of the establishment, blocking entry: "I don't serve your kind here."  
This will only happen if there is a worn, uncovered striped shirt.  Shopkeepers will not notice shirts under torso armor or a cloak, and they will not object if a scruffy visitor tries to sell them something that looks suspiciously like a discarded prison uniform.  However, shopkeepers who have seen a customer in stripes even once will remember the sight and continue to refuse access, even after the customer removes the shirt or covers it up.
In UnNetHack, black marketeer One-eyed Sam is an exception: if she sees a customer wearing a striped shirt, she will reduce her prices.

Strategy
Along with finding something to eat and appeasing your deity, losing the conspicuous prison uniform is one of the first tasks on the Convict's to-do list for the early game.  Unfortunately, the Convict's former captors at Castle Waterdeep Dungeon have cleverly given their inmates cursed uniforms, so unfortunately you can't just peel it off.
A newly escaped Convict has a few options for dealing with his or her uniform:

Hide it. The easiest temporary solution is to put on any (ideally non-cursed) torso armor or cloak you find, until you find a permanent solution.  Shopkeepers will not notice a striped shirt under torso armor or a cloak—but be careful not to remove the covering garment in front of them.  Take care not to change your clothes inside or within sight of a store.
Uncurse it.  Possibly the most ideal option, as the non-cursed shirt can be just as useful as other shirts if worn discreetly.  When you find a non-cursed scroll that might be remove curse or enchant armor, strip down to your shirt and read it.  If you satisfy your deity early enough, (s)he might uncurse the clothing as a favor, or provide some holy water that can be used to uncurse it.  In a pinch, you can try dipping the shirt repeatedly into a fountain, but this is probably risky behavior for a beginner.
Destroy it. This is one scenario where the otherwise despised scroll of destroy armor comes in handy.  Strip down to your shirt and read the scroll.  Even reading an unidentified scroll may be worthwhile, in the event that it turns out to be remove curse or enchant armor.  Alternately, a black/disintegration dragon might helpfully reduce the shirt to dust for you, but by the time you are seeing black dragons and are able to survive their breath, you will most likely have solved the shirt problem already.
Give it to a nymph.  Fortunately, nymphs will take striped shirts just as readily as they will other cursed equipment.  (They might even help with the ball and chain, too.)  Unfortunately, they are likely to take other things in the same encounter.
Strip for a foocubus.  Any fantasies a prison uniform might suggest are lost on foocubi, who will (offer to) take it off, along with the rest of a partner's clothing.  Unfortunately, recent escapees are not likely to be very smart or attractive, so the rest of the experience might be unhealthy for them.
Note that even without a visible striped shirt, you may still attract the attention of vault guards and the authorities in Minetown, on the basis of facial recognition alone ("Hey! You are the one from the wanted poster!").  They will not recognize you if you are polymorphed (or, in dNetHack, if your face is covered by something other than a pair of lenses).

Other
In dNetHack, it appears that not even amnesia can make shopkeepers forget your criminal associations.