My New Pants

Every year or so, I buy a few new pairs of pants for use at work.  I hate spending money on pants when there are so many other things that the money could be used for that are more fun than pants. Examples would be photography stuff, CDs, video games, and books!

Also, the depreciation on pants is so ridiculous, that it makes a new car look like a bargain.  It's well known that a new car loses a huge chunk of value as soon as you drive it off the lot...often amounting to thousands of dollars.  However, this may only be 10% of the car's value.  If I buy a pair of pants for $30, put them on, then walk out of the store, I think the pants would now be worth about $2.00.   That is over 90% of the value, instantly gone.

So it is with great fear and trepidation that I approach the pants rack each year.  This year, I decided to go for three pairs.  To simplify the whole matching with socks problem, I decided to buy basically the same exact pants and then get one that was  slightly different color...you know, for the variety.

Looking through the pants, I noticed a large price difference between two nearly identical pairs of pants.  One pair was $30.00, and the other $50.00.  Both claimed to be massively on sale.  Further examination showed that one had a "normal" material.  That means it wrinkles in this context.  The other was made of a space-age fabric that also felt pretty nice.  It was also supposed to not wrinkle...to the extent that they were called "no iron."   I wonder what the difference between "no iron" and "permanent press" is?  Does "permanent press" still exist or was that part of the leisure suit era?  Don't look at me, I don't have all the answers!  I was at the store to buy some khaki pants and that's all!  I don't have any kind of degree in pantsology or anything.

There really weren't any pants sales engineers around to explain the technical difference between the two fabrics and produce any sort of documentation proving the validity of the claims. So, being adverse to spending time buying pants in the first place (I had already spent 3-4 minutes on this, I was tired of shopping!), I decided to take the "no iron" claim at its word which made the whole pants decision a purely financial one.

Now, I'm smart enough to realize that the different purchase prices of the pants may not be indicative of the true, total cost of ownership of the pants.  In fact, in my experience, it is often the case that a higher initial purchase price actually produces a lower total cost of ownership.  The "no iron" pants were just $20 more, each.  If I expected the pants to last an entire year, and these were truly "no iron" pants (a "fact" which I've already mentioned I planned to take on faith), then the $50 pants could easily save $20 each in ironing time.

I bought three pair.

They felt wonderful, fit just right, and even seemed to live up to the "no iron" claim as they really didn't even wrinkle.  Awesome! 

The first pair lasted exactly two days.

This was totally notawesome!  This completely messed up my entire financial rational.  The problem is, I don't think I can really return them, because it could conceivably be a little bit of my own fault that they malfunctioned.  You see, I walk...a lot.  You can look in the September 2007 archives to see when this started.  Since that September, I have walked hundreds of miles.  Not so coincidently that is when this blog started. I started spending time walking (solo) with no distractions and I started getting ideas.  The blog was born!  This week was no different, except I was walking in my new pants. 

Now, generally if I'm going to walk for a distance greater than about 2 miles, I will change into my tennis shoes as they are much more comfortable for longer distances. The soles of my tennis shoes turn out to be slightly thinner than the soles of my business casual shoes.  (Wait just a minute, saying the words business casual together in a sentence just made me throw up a little in my mouth. Saying "fabric" wasn't much better, to be honest.........Ok, all better. Resume reading.) So, when I was walking, the back of the cuff would occasionally hit the ground, where as with the, um, other shoes they would not.

I was worried a little bit about this because I figured the pants would pick up dirt from the trail and become stained.  So it was with a little bit of fear that I looked at my pants cuffs when I got home that evening.  They weren't really stained, but I did notice something even more discouraging.  The back of each cuff had worn completely through and was frayed!

Two days.  It's a shame that the same scientists that invented the miracle fabric that doesn't require ironing, yet is notmade out of leisure suit permanent press material, could not develop a cuff that wouldn't disintegrate upon occasionally coming in contact with the ground!

It's a darn good thing that men don't typically shave their legs.  I know this sounds like a bit of a non sequitur, but stick with me here.  Can you imagine if a man, who shaved his legs, wore these pants after perhaps not shaving for a couple of days?  The stubble on his legs could cause the whole entire pants legs to wear through without warning!   The poor guy could be giving an important presentation in front of his company's biggest client and suddenly find himself without pants!  That's like a bad dream sequence.

Well, I've come up with a solution for the walks.  I roll my pants legs up a bit when walking with my tennis shoes to prevent further destruction.  Of course, this great and brilliant plan has a down side for me:  I forget to roll them down.

Last night, for example, I went through an entire rehearsal with my pants rolled up...and then went to Best Buy to buy Mario Kart for my Father's Day DS with my pants still rolled up.  Sadly, I kind of like that particular Best Buy and now I have to put it on my list of stores I can never again go to, due to somehow embarrassing myself.  Rats.

I hate buying pants.

Comments

[abunslife]

I just got Dave some of Docker's "golf" pants...they are lighter than the traditional docker material, look dressier and only cost 30 bucks at Kohls. He doesn't walk (long distances) in them but he really likes them.

[Chuck]

I think I have read maybe 3 posts dedicated to the topic of pants and seeing as I can't remember the other two you sir get the best pants post ever!

Coincidentally, I have a couple of stores I can't go into for the very same rolled up pants reason. One of them may be Best Buy. Uncanny.

[Gregg]

"best pants post ever?"

In addition to being somewhat difficult to say, that' almost like...like...an AWARD!!!!

Oh, Oh...there goes the ego...

[Bri]

This is probably bad, but I would try to return them. If you've really only had them a few days, there's no reason the fabric should break down like that, walking or no walking. They should at least let you exchange for a new pair which you can then roll up and wear to Best Buy.