Hot Pants

My husband, er, Chazz, works in an office that allows for a somewhat casual dress code. He occasionally has to don regulation suit and tie, but most of the time a khaki-and-polo-shirt-type of combo is acceptable. So on the one hand this a great relief to me as it keeps my dry cleaning costs to a minimum, but on the other hand my husband will only wear Docker brand pants, which is somewhat limiting from a thrifty point of view. And he won’t even consider AT ALL thrift store and yard sale treasures no matter how much I reason with him, so for me these tried and true sources of thrifty family-wardrobe replenishment are a complete waste of time and money (at least as far as my husband is concerned).

Dockers aren’t the cheapest pair of pants in the casual-business-attire universe, but I can usually find a good sale at Kohl’s or J.C. Penney’s when I need to stock up. Also, I have to say that they seem to be well-made and of a better quality than some other “bargains” I’ve tried, and are easy to care for (no dry cleaning!). I don’t think these type of pants ever really go out of style, either. My husband generally prefers the black Dockers, but will occasionally wear regular khaki when he’s feeling especially saucy. Khaki-colored Dockers are great! - they wear like iron, PLUS they look good for years and years.

I want my husband er, Chazz, to look spiffy and polished when he goes to work because in the dog-eat-dog world of corporate America (and especially in today’s uncertain economic climate) you can never be too careful. Plus, the way you look on the job sends a definite message - if your slovenly on the outside, what does this say about your work? When you’re at home, or if you have a great employee union and have long since passed probation, I say what the heck, let it all hang out. But if you don’t work at home or if you happen to live in a right-to-work state (which Texas is) I think it’s wise to walk the walk from 9 to 5, or you may just find yourself walking to the unemployment line.

So, as a conscientious and thrifty housewife it has always been a great misery to me when Chazz’s expensive black Docker’s begin to fade after repeated washings, even after ALWAYS line-drying them. The pants’ construction would still look great, structurally they held up well, but their faded greyness made them look well past their prime. Off I would go, then, to the nearest Kohl’s to replenish the black Docker supply, usually spending about a $120 for the minimum four-pair he needs to get him through the work week.

This was more-or-less an annual event but for the past three years I have managed to forgo this grim pilgrimage, while still sending Chazz off to work daily with the requisite spiffyness. Tune in next week, and I’ll tell you how I do it! (Heh, heh, just kidding! I thought a bit off a cliffhanger would add a lot of spice to this already unbearably exciting post. But actually, I am going to take my silly Lab Sadie for a walk now so I’ll finish this up when I come back, in about an hour. I’ll tell you then. See ya’!).

This is my Silly Lab Sadie. She is a good girl and a good friend. But not to rabbits.

Ok, I’m back. Looks like rain today. So this is what I do. I go to the supermarket and buy a $2.39 bottle of liquid Rit Dye (black of course). I follow the instructions on the back, more-or-less: I fill an old but clean plastic bucket with 1 cup salt, 6 gallons of the hottest water from my tap (hot pants -get it?), and one bottle of dye. I put four pair of my husband’s pants, plus one black shirt that I got bleach on, plus, later, the khaki shorts I was wearing when I was doing this because I wasn’t careful and splashed black dye all over them.

I did this on a Friday (when my husband can wear jeans to work) just in case I found out on Saturday (when I knew Kohl’s was having a sale) that I had really somehow scrooged up (that’s what thrifty people do when they screw up in the pursuit of thriftiness) and totally ruined his pants. Even though I have successfully completed this process a number of times, I’m still worried this might happen. I don’t know - maybe pants reach a certain point of dye “fatigue” and THIS will be the time that they dissolve completely instead of coming out nice and crisp and black. If that happened, then I will have plenty of time to head to Kohl’s and buy him some new sale-priced pants before he has to go to work again on Monday. I really don’t want to do that but it is worth the risk. So right there you see that the thrifty lifestyle involves a lot of exciting riskiness - I walk on the edge, baby!

I leave the items to soak overnight even though the instructions say just a few hours. But I really want them to be DYED. Hooray! Success! Once more they came out great. My khaki shorts, not so much. Well, it was worth a try anyway, because they were already ruined. Besides, I can wear them around the house. Or when I’m dying something black.

I put everything in the washing machine, wash on cold, line dry and iron. Then I pour the used dye down the sink drain. I know that seems terrible, but it’s not as bad as jet fuel in the water supply (is it?). Plus, it’s one little bottle diluted into six gallons of water. Also, I think the cost and materials and environmental & human damage harm involved in creating and marketing and buying brand new pants probably outweighs dye disposal harm, so I can live with myself. So there you go. Mission accomplished.