May
20
They took her pants, but she didn’t fold!
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Just a little confessional written for The Post’s feature section about my eBay pant-buying habit.
Originally published in The Palm Beach Post on Sunday, May 20, 2007.
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Let’s get this out in the open straight away: I buy my pants on eBay.
Not just some of my pants. All of my pants.
I’d really prefer to buy clothes in stores, like other people do. But it wasn’t easy to find the right pair of pants. And when my favorite fit was discontinued, I didn’t have much of a choice.
For years, I wandered The Gardens Mall like Goldilocks, judging every pair too low-slung, too stretchy, too … wrong.
Then I spotted a sign at Express introducing “the correspondent pant.”
I tried on a pair. It was as if the workers who mass-produced them in a Taiwanese factory had kindly called ahead to ask for my specifications.
I bought three pairs in charcoal gray, and immediately started wearing them to work pretty much daily.
They were polyester blend, machine wash cold, tumble dry low. And they were versatile, perfect for my job as a newspaper reporter – I could wear them to a brush fire in the morning and still look professional for a court hearing in the afternoon.
I admit that I also loved them partly for their name, which hinted at international travel and evoked a certain glamour from the golden era of newspapers. My job description might technically be metro reporter, but the tag on my pants said “correspondent.”
Then, one day, I went to the store to buy more pants, and they were gone. Sorry, discontinued, the saleswoman said. She thought I might also like the “editor,” or the “stylist” fit.
These are perfectly nice pants. Some of my best friends wear them.
But they are not the same.
By last fall, my last pairs were fading, and my desperation was growing.
It was clear I was not going to find a suitable replacement. And some people are of the opinion that it is inappropriate to go to work without pants.
I fretted. I sulked. Then, I had a thought: You can find anything you might ever want, and frankly quite a bit more, on eBay.
I don’t know why I didn’t hit on that sooner. My husband and I have bought pretty much everything we own online, including our wedding rings.
One of my friends, however, thought it was kind of icky to buy used pants, sight unseen, on the Internet.
You don’t know where they’ve been, she said. What if someone died in those pants?
I gave that some thought, but decided to proceed, while keeping a judicious eye out for bullet holes or other telltale signs of a struggle.
For months now, I have stalked eBay like a panther. I intend to corner the market in my size, then hoard them. Eventually, I hope to collect enough pairs to last me until retirement, which the U.S. Social Security Administration pinpoints as spring of 2045.
So far, everything is going mostly according to plan. In the first six months of bidding, I won nine pairs.
Two of those admittedly weren’t quite right. One had a jaunty brown stripe down each side, for the ladies who love a marching band. The other pair was stained. I’m not sure with what, and it’s best not to dwell.
But the other seven were just like new, and some were even NWT, new with tags. So far I’ve paid an average of $15 each, about a third of original retail.
Recently, I spotted a 10th pair in my size. The picture wasn’t too promising – it showed the pants folded on the floor of a dark room.
The seller billed them as “gently used,” and the bidding started at 99 cents. Since I’m not really in a position to be picky, I pounced. I won for $3.26, plus $7 shipping.
That might have been too much for what could have turned out to be a nasty old pair of pants (for the record, they’re smashing – another excellent buy!), but I know I am not alone in this.
A young graphic designer from Seattle posted a blog item about her love of the “correspondent” pant in 2005. A few of her readers later wrote to the headquarters of Limited Brands, urging them to bring back our pants.
The responses they posted from the company didn’t inspire much hope.
Dear Customer, one corporate rep wrote, we try to keep our inventory fresh. Styles change, she said, with what seemed like a shrug.
As far as I can tell, the women’s e-mail campaign fizzled soon after.
But I’m glad to know other fans are out there, even if they are bidding against me on eBay. It’s a lonely feeling when you realize your reliable old favorite has been yanked to make room for fresh inventory.
Last year on an episode of The Simpsons, Homer discovered that stores had stopped selling his Big Blue Pant. Discontinued due to poor sales, the factory said.
Homer thought he might try to drum up interest. He thought up a marketing slogan, which he wrote on the back of his own head.
“Buy Blue Pants,” it said.
Not a bad idea, actually.
Buy Correspondent Pants.
Copyright 2007 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
May 20, 2007 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: ACCENT, Pg. 1D
LENGTH: 771 words