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The no-fly zone
I’m not saying that I’m cheap. I just buy the lowest cost items that I can find, especially in the undergarments department. I figure since no one can see them, and so as long as they do the job, why buy pricier products?
So I was initially quite pleased when I passed among the racks at an off-price retailer and came across a three-pack of upscale men’s boxer briefs at what seemed to be a very reasonable price. But I found I had to reassess just what it meant to “do the job.”
I waited until the next day to put a pair on. And I became puzzled. I put them on one way, and realized I had put them on backwards. So I reversed them and put them on again. They were still backwards. That didn’t make any sense. So I turned them inside out and tried again. Same result. What the heck was going on? To put the matter as politely as the subject at hand will permit, there was no fly—the access point that allows you to use a washroom standing up, at least where the bodily function in question will permit. Instead, there was a panel sewn across the front. Access denied.
And then I looked at the package. The label on the box said “with front panel”—a statement that had meant absolutely nothing to me at the time. Now if it had said “without fly,” I would perhaps have thought about my purchase more carefully. So I checked that I still had my receipt. I did, but a quick check on the back confirmed the worst: “no returns on undergarments” it stated clearly. I was stuck with them. My feeling of being hoodwinked felt all the more intense because I had just realized that my clever purchase last year of a five-year renewal on all my Sears warranties as part of a “special promotion” wasn’t such a smart move after all. I am convinced that somewhere in retail land, there is a chorus of off-duty underwear and warrranty salespeople watching purchasers like me through one-way glass, doubled over with laughter.
To me, making underwear without a fly makes no sense. Would they consider selling a kettle without a spout? Or making a bathtub without a plughole? I can’t for the life of me see how removing a fly and subsittuting a panel makes it any easier to get the job at hand done, at least standing up. I don’t have a degree in trigonometry, but I’d wager that directly through, rather than up and over, is the most efficient manner of delivery of function number one—for men, at least. What comes next? Tunics without buttons? One-piece boiler suits?
As judiciously as I could, I checked the Internet for an explanation. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the subject had indeed been well explored: nobody ever went broke overestimating the ability of the Internet to fill cyberspace with picayune matters of dubious taste. All kinds of explanations were offered—the rise of spandex, the need for multifunctional underwear, the growing use of the seated position, the increasng popularity of casual wear, or simply fashion trends. One source even said it had to do with the fact that men take their smartphones everywhere, the implication being that standing and performing a one-handed manoeuvre is somehow easier with flyless underwear. That prompts me to resolve never to stand in a public washroom next to a man holding a smartphone.
For whatever reason, over the past couple of years, panel-fronted underwear has apparently grabbed a significant share of the market. I prefer to see the glass as half full, and say that underwear with a fly maintains a solid grip on the market despite some erosion of its market share. I for one will be making my next purchase with much more care, never to repeat my inadvertent contribution to that erosion.
However, I am too cheap to consign my new flyless underwear to the recycle bin, so I will probably leave it in my starting underwear rotation until it wears out. So, reluctantly, I enter the no-fly zone. For three days a week, I may at times be wearing a particularly pained expression. But who knows, maybe I will become a convert. Yes, and maybe someone will come out of nowhere and volunteer to honour my Sears warranties.
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