A couple of weeks ago I was in a large well-known department store in Chicago. Tam and I were buying back to school clothes for Ev. As I get older it's really fun to buy clothes for our little guy-- after all, he looks so much better in his clothes than I do in mine anymore. It's a vicarious pleasure seeing him in cute jeans and snappy shirts. All lean, no waist.
Nonetheless, as I walked through the store I remembered I needed to pick up some new boxers. I looked at the nice substantial ones made by big-name designers. These were the boxers that hang separate on hangers. Nice. One look at the label, however, and I had to put them back: I'm not paying $30 for a pair of boxers made overseas under sweat shop conditions for pennies per hour just so some American fashion icon can have 5 houses, a fleet of jets, a multi million dollar car collection, and a bad haircut. For $30 I can have them made in the US, of US materials with US labor from sources like City Boxers, Flint and Tinder, or Donn Mason. So, the hell with that. In a pinch, I bought the name brand 4 pack for $30 or so. At about $7.50 a piece, they'd do for now.
Or so I thought. The bargain priced name brand boxers I bought (made in Vietnam) looked terrific in the package but that's kind of the end of it. Once out, what looked like neat and comfy fabrics turned out to be stiff and lifeless flimsy plaids and prints. Definitely not a product that'll be sitting folded in my underwear drawer in another 6 months. Alas, these will never become comfy old friends.
It seems everywhere you look these days you find evidence of the creeping culture of cheap crud that has degraded so many products from hospital gowns, to restaurant napkins, to boxer shorts. Like flimsy paper plates that collapse in your lap or no-brand toilet paper that persuades you to skip that next trip to the bathroom, these products are simply not nice. As costs are reined in and profits held steady, affordable products are more and more becoming the things that one would not knowingly choose to use.
Well, it turns out that's what you get in a $30 four pack of boxers these days. I'd understand if they were disposable. They possess all the welcoming drape, feel, and substance of newsprint. I pretty much thought they'd disintegrate first time through the washer. I'll tell you now they did not disintegrate when washed but I'll be darn surprised if they survive 6 more trips around the spin cycle of my (made in USA) Speed Queen.
I have new boxers on the way. All cotton. Made in the USA. $25 a pair. When it comes to US workers, American products, and my bum and naughty bits, it's worth the expense. As my financial planner would say: it's a value based spending decision. It's just too bad that, anymore, it requires relative wealth to obtain such value. Quality underwear, it seems, is a luxury-- but, then, I guess women have known that for years.
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