What’s wrong with my pants?
For my entire life my lower body attire of choice has been jeans. I have probably owned close to a hundred pairs in my life. Never worried too much about brand names or colors or styles, just as long as they were made of denim and fit comfortably.
I briefly have had a couple jobs where I had to wear khaki pants, and I’m here to tell you man, there’s nothing in the world worse than khaki pants. Well, maybe corduroy pants, but to a Denim Dan like myself that’s basically the same thing.
(Note: The above statement regarding khaki pants does not apply to women.)
I can stomach wearing a pair of dress slacks when the situation calls for it, but considering I usually wear jeans to weddings and funerals I’m not really sure what that situation would be.
What’s kind of ironic, though, is that while dozens of pairs of jeans have made their way from my dresser to my legs to the hamper to the washer to the dryer and all over again, I don’t remember the last time I purchased a pair myself. My mother has been buying my jeans for me forever. Typically every Christmas she’d get me at least two new pairs. Sometimes they weren’t exactly the right size, but as long as they were close I’d keep them because I’m too lazy and anti-shopping mall to go exchange them.
But over the last few years I’ve noticed a problem. Every pair develops a hole — or holes — in the, um, well, the crotch area.
I’m not trying to be juvenile or dirty here. This has become a serious mystery in my life. Why do the same holes in the same spots keep showing up in my jeans?
I used to think maybe it meant I needed to lose weight, but I eventually did lose weight, and the holes just seemed to form faster.
This became a troubling issue in my life. I used to periodically take my jeans to my mother, who would sew a patch (sometimes in rather loud and conspicuous material) to cover the hole, but she lives in Wyoming now, and yeah, I’m way too lazy and cheap to mail my jeans to my mom or repair them myself.
So I’ve basically been walking around with holes in the butt of my pants, which, when they inevitably are stretched wider and wider (much wider than the above picture), allow anyone who looks close to see the color of my underwear. I actually didn’t care all that much about that, but a few times people have said to me, ‘Hey, Zim, uh, cows are gettin’ out, buddy’, and at that point you realize you probably need to cover up.
Wondering if this was a common thing or if I just had something goofy going on in my pants, I started to actually get a little, I don’t want to say paranoid, but at least curious. Am I the only guy having this problem? I asked a couple friends. One said, yes, the same thing happens to me all the time. The other said what’s your problem don’t ever ask me about my crotch ever again. One day at the gym I was changing clothes and a guy next to me threw his jeans on a stool by his locker and walked to the bathroom. While he was using the facilities I did a quick recon to make sure no one was looking and gingerly picked up the guy’s jeans and inspected the crotch area. No hole, but it was definitely worn. There was definitely a hole brewing. So that made me feel better. I set the jeans down just as the guy flushed and finished changing clothes. If anyone from my gym reads this, I promise it wasn’t you.
Still, I needed more verification. I continued asking around. I found that many other guys had the same problem and were as mystified by it as I. No one seemed to know what was causing it.
Here were some suggestions for what might be causing my problems.
1. Your thighs rub together, wearing the fabric.
They don’t, and even if they did, that’s not where the holes are.
2. You have a big behind.
Basically a rude way of saying your pants are too small.
3. You’re very well-endowed.
Yep, that’s probably it. (Note: That’s not it.)
4. Gas.
Ha ha, grow up, very funny, no, whenever that happens I’ve usually already changed into shorts or sweats.
5. You’re wearing cheap jeans.
Well, maybe.
Needing more information, I did the next thing any reasonable person would do. I fired up the laptop and typed into the google search engine: “Why do my jeans keep ripping in the crotch?”
I didn’t really get any definitive answers, but at least I was welcomed by an entire community of boxer baring brethren.
One guy said it happens to him a week after he buys new jeans. Another guy said he used glue to…I’m still not sure how he used the glue. I discovered there is apparently a thing called ‘denim therapy’. I didn’t investigate.
Some guys said they tried returning their pants, with varying results. One guy said the holes came from wearing your jeans too loosely.
“Pull them up really snug,” he suggested on one of these message boards. When a skeptic asked if that meant he now suffered from frequent wedgies the guy answered, “Well, yeah, but it’s better than ripping holes in your jeans,” and then I knew I just had to get the hell out of there.
Other guys bought their next pair two sizes too big, which worked, but meant they had to deal with pants two sizes too big. No thanks. There were even a few women who complained of the crotch-hole problem.
Most people who said they’d solved the problem, however, did it by buying more expensive jeans.
Now. I don’t think my mom has been buying me ‘cheap’ jeans, necessarily. She’s always been fairly fashion-conscious (she used to work as a buyer for the old Michaels & Burkes in the mall). But I can’t say I’ve paid much attention to what she was buying me. She bought them, I wore them. Maybe they were cheap.
This Christmas she bought me a pair of jeans and a shirt from Kohls, neither of which fit. So I returned them (really, I drove to the store and stood in line at Customer Service and everything) for store credit (after the criminals wouldn’t give me cash), and figured I’d use that credit for a new pair of jeans.
I found a pair I sorta liked. Checked the price tag.
$75
Are you serious?
I actually let out an audible expletive when I saw the price tag, offending the woman next to me who was about to buy the same pair for her ornery teenage son.
So this is what it costs to reinforce the crotch of your jeans, huh? $75? Maybe khaki pants aren’t that bad yes they are.
I later complained to a friend that there was a department store in town that charged $75 for a pair of jeans and she looked at me like I’d just whined about paying $2.50 for a gallon of gas.
“They can get way more expensive than that,” she said.
“Do they get holes in the crotch?” I asked.
“Yeah, sometimes.”
So I guess I’m stuck. I can overpay for designer jeans that still aren’t guaranteed to hold up, or I can keep wearing $40 jeans and dealing with the free air conditioning that comes with them after a few months. It’s better than wearing khaki pants. Khaki pants are horrible.
