Friday Fail: Epic Wardrobe Malfunction
A few weeks ago, Billy’s favorite jeans were getting a little thread bare and so he bought some patches and asked me to iron them on the INSIDE of his jeans leg. He taught me that patching on the inside of the leg sealed the hole but didn’t show to the naked eye and make one look like an 8-year-old boy. What?
I always had the dry cleaner repair my jeans, unaware that for $3.00 I could buy some iron-on patches at the grocery store and do it myself. That’s at least a $2.00 savings!
Brilliant!
How hard can it be to patch a pair of pants? I read the instructions and executed the procedure perfectly. Exhibit A.
Over the next few months I noticed MY favorite jeans were developing a hole too, but since I wasn’t sure where I put the leftover patches from Billy’s repair job, I ignored the tatters. Ripped jeans can be cool, I reasoned (only later realizing that was my 1980’s fashion sense speaking). Then, a few days later, a second pair of jeans developed a tiny tear in the crotch area (sorry about the icky word!) and I knew I had to get serious about finding the patches.
The iron-on patch stash eventually turned up in the laundry room (I see my logic in hindsight), but the directions were long gone. I remembered everything being easy, so I slid the patch into the pants leg with the dark side of the fabric facing the hole and ironed on the knee.
Fail #1 - Evidently, the opaque side of the patch, not the dark side, faces the hole. In my case, I had just ironed a patch on the inside back of the knee. Fine. What’s a little stiff patch on the back a of a knee when it’s a favorite pair of jeans? Fortunately the front one took, so now I’ve got a pair of twin patches inside my pants leg.
The second set of jeans proved a little trickier. The tear was happening at the seam of the crotch so I had to do some tricky cutting and ironing to get the patch to take. Still, at least I got the sticky part on the right side. All was well. Or so I thought.
Fail #2 happened when I wore the jeans with the strained inseam to work. I was getting out of my car I heard the tear reappear…and felt a draft where air currents should not typically flow. Um. OK.I was heading into a day of back-to back meetings with no margin for running out to the grocery store to grab safety pens. What to do? What to do?
The only option was to fish around the office for a solution. The best alternative I could find was to use packing tape to seal the tear.
Win #1 – I highly recommend this solution. Granted, there’s no getting over the awkward feeling of sitting on tape, but it DOES hold the fabric together nicely. (Guaranteed Pinterest win)
Fail #3 – I soon realized packing tape, when twisted (as in the movement caused by walking when it is affixed to ones crotch region) is loud.
Win #2 – Another assessment of office solutions helped me see that water bottles in a fidgety hand sound similar to packing tape. Ergo, if you carry a bottle with you wherever you go, people assume what they are hearing is the water bottle and not packing tape in your crotch. (PLEASE humor me and tell me that’s what people assume they hear.)
So, that’s it.
For those of you keeping score, the fails still outnumber the wins. I end the day behind but vow to try again the next day. My lesson: trust the dry cleaner.
After all, I am human, just like you and put my pants on one double-patched leg and packing tape crotch at a time.