The Pants Story

There has been a lot of pants stuff going on in the last few years. 

First, there was the whole pants-at-church thing:

Then there was the time the one-and-only Lohan forgot to wear pants. (Props to her for representing us pale-skinned women.)

And we can never forget the classic VeggieTales song "Pants" that includes such hilarious lines as "They're pants if you're short and shorts if you're tall" or "It's a verb for a dog and a noun for a kid."




(Admit it: You loved VeggieTales.)

However, no pants story is so great as 

THE TALE OF THE URBAN OUTFITTERS FIASCO PANTS. 

Day #1: It was 2 a.m. and I (being the insomniac I am) was online, checking on a pair of pants that I had been looking at alllllll summer. They were the perfect pair of high-waisted, black skinnies and, to my surprise, they had gone on sale that day. HOORAY. I clicked the button to place my order. The screen froze. And then 1 minute later a screen came up that said the pants had been shipped. 

Weird. I didn't click the submit button. But great, I skipped a few steps. 

Katie, Katie, Katie. By "skipped a few steps" I think you meant "added hours of endless torture and frustration." 

Day #2: I check the confirmation e-mail only to realize that when the website "skipped a few steps" it sent the pants to my pre-set address which was MY OLD ADDRESS!!!!!

I e-mailed Urban but to no avail. "Your pants have already been shipped," they said. "Try dunking your head repeatedly in a large tub of water until you are too dizzy to realize you will never receive your favorite pair of pants you never had."

Day #3: Realizing that I don't have a single family member in Provo at the moment to try and track the pants down, I call on my favorite friends Spencer and Michelle to help me out.

Day #4-#26: Spencer goes to our old apartment. They are not home. He goes again. They are not home. He finally contacts them and tells them to contact him when the pants come. He goes back. They are not home. My sister gets back to Provo and goes to check. They are not home. (Do these people actually even LIVE there?) The pants come in the mail. For unknown reasons the people take them upstairs to where they thought my brother and sister are living. They are not living there. I call the landlord. They have the package. They look for it. They lost the package. I cry. I call Urban. They say they can't do anything for me. I cry some more.

Day #27: I get a phone call from the old landlord. His wife has found the pants!!

"Great," I say, "I will send my sister over to get them today."

"Oh." he says, "My wife just told me that she just took them to the post office and sent them back because she didn't want to deal with them." (What?)

I swear to never wear pants, or call people or like my life ever again. But then...

Day #30: ...Urban e-mails me and says that my pants have been re-shipped to my house. It's a pants miracle!

I honestly don't think this should have been as dramatic as it was. But the sheer frustration of having to track down an expensive pair of pants (that I got for half-price) every day for over a month was too much. I hated that I had to rely on multiple people to go out of their way for me, including the people in my old apartment who turned out to be super nice and just as concerned about my pants as I was. I think everyone realized what a serious issue pants are. I'm really proud of our generation for noting that.

Day #36: My pants FINALLY came in the mail. They are great and I kind of resent them for everything they put me through but we are working through our issues.

I think the real moral of the story is this: Online shopping at 2 a.m. is always a bad idea. But it might lead you to a really funny VeggieTales song.

(Shout-out to Spencer and my sister Rachel for caring enough to repeatedly and awkwardly knock on someone's door for me. That is true friendship right there.)