Consumerist Complaints

Here we are on the cusp of August, and it's hot in Chicago, so it almost goes without saying that I'm in a bad mood. Here are a couple of things I feel like complaining about.

• I've long been a Levi's man when it comes to jeans, but lately the Levi's I've gotten haven't seemed as sturdy and well made as they have in the past. So I've started branching out with other brands. None seem as strong as the Levi's I remember from my youth, which means I've still got a problem in settling on jeans that are good enough. But right now, I want to talk about the jeans I had to replace last week. I'd bought a pair of Lee jeans six to nine months ago. I'd already had to mend a couple of belt loops that had come loose, and there was a small hole near the back pocket that had been fixed. But lately two more belt loops had come undone, and the material near the back pockets was tearing. Having them for less than a year, this seemed unacceptable, but only to the point where I'd just try to avoid Lee jeans in the future. But then something happened that made them completely unwearable.

It was the weekend, and I'd arranged to meet some people at a show. I was later getting up than I'd intended, so I got dressed and went to meet them at the theater. I didn't notice anything unusual in putting my jeans on. Along the way to the theater, I stopped to get gas, and then I found a parking place. I walked up a few blocks to meet my friends, and since we were early, we stopped at a bar across from the theater for a beer before the show. Once we got into the theater, I decided to use the restroom before the show started. When I went to unzip, I noticed a gash in my jeans roughly parallel to the zipper, about three inches long or so. It wasn't on a seam, but was in the middle of the fabric. There was no way I could miss it when zipping or unzipping, so I know it hadn't been there an hour earlier when I got dressed. The fabric had to have torn for no apparent reason. Quite frankly, it looked like it might've been cut by a knife, but--being a guy and all--I think I would've noticed a knife (or any equally sharp object) lunging toward my crotch. Since we were going to be sitting in a dark theater, I figured I'd be OK as long as I kept my program in my lap. I did change out of them (never to put them on again) as soon as I got home, though. Needless to say, I won't be buying any more Lee jeans.

• Sorry to come off like Andy Rooney, here, but something else has bugged me for a while. Does it annoy anyone else that when you buy solid deodorant or antiperspirant, the final third or so is unusable? To make it easy to use, the manufacturer imbeds a good deal of the solid mass into the plastic container. Once it's used up to a certain level, you can no longer apply it normally--if you try, you just get the plastic container scraping against your skin. There's no way to get at that deodorant short of digging it out with your fingers and then applying it to your underarms by hand. Not the most efficient way to apply antiperspirant, let me tell you. So when you get a solid and look at the net weight, you know that there's a quarter to a third of that weight that you're just going to throw away. The manufacturers know that (and you know it, too if you bother to think it through). Let's all boycott solid antiperspirants and just buy roll-on!

Although it's been forecast that temperatures are going to be getting even a bit hotter over the next few days, let's hope that my mood's not held hostage to it. I could stand to be a little more relaxed.