The slowest zipper in the world
is on my brown corduroy pants from J. Peterman. Yes, I know that Peterman is generally overpriced, but all the clothing I've ever bought from them has been comfortable and astonishingly durable. As someone who values comfort and often wears garments until they're in tatters, these two properties make the high price acceptable.
These pants, however, are driving me crazy.
I was hesitant to get them in the first place, because I don't wear a lot of brown. It's a color that can lead to looks--usually from women--that sneak into your auditory brain centers via your optic nerve and scream loudly, "You can't wear those colors together." Blue jeans and black pants, by contrast, go with just about anything--which makes my life simpler.
The issue of the color of these pants, however, pales beside the problem with their zipper. It simply won't go down without a battle. Up is easy; it's fine with closing. It resists opening with the extraordinary determination of a close-mouthed child refusing even a single bite of particularly nasty squash.
I consequently find myself at urinals tugging on the zipper while simultaneously pulling up on the front of the pants and cursing--a situation that instantly mutates from merely maddening to terribly embarrassing when anyone else enters the restroom at, say, the office. Not that this has happened to me. Well, not since I left the office this evening.
I'm sure others have faced this problem and resolved it with some appropriately high-tech zipper technology, and in the end I'll probably have to resort to using said tech. For now, though, I'm falling back on the classic male solution of tugging like hell while getting increasingly angry. It's me vs. the pants, and I refuse to lose.
Until my eventual and ultimate triumph over these corduroy demons, please accept my apology now if we happen to share a public restroom while I'm wearing them.
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2 comments:
if it's only catching on the way down, the bottom end of the slider may be crimped too tightly and catching on the teeth due to the slight outward torque when you pull down on the tab. if that's the problem, you should be able to see it while down-zipping them when you're not wearing them. (or, if that changes the pull angle too much, while someone else is wearing them.)
if it's a metal slider, you can take a needlenose pliers and gently flare out the bottom flange on whichever side is catching (or both sides). a teeny tiny adjustment can totally fix the problem. if it's a plastic slider, you'd probably need to file it down with fine sandpaper.
either way, it might be worth a try, since it sounds like you really like the pants everywhere except the restroom... :)
- lisa
My current plan is to be annoyed at the zipper for years and hope it will get better on its own. This is my (classically male) solution to many such problems.
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