Note: Although this sounds like a rant, it’s actually a rave.

Dear North Face Customer Service:

I’m writing to express my disappointment in one of your products.

Several years ago (in 1992, to be precise), I purchased a pair of North Face shorts to wear on the trip of a lifetime. You see, my husband and I married in December of ’92 and spent our honeymoon flying a Cessna 172 around Australia in the spring of ’93.

Here we are at Redcliffe Aerodrome, near Brisbane, at the start of the trip. (Notice the recently purchased North Face shorts and ever-fashionable fanny pack [or bum bag as they prefer to call it Down Under]).

My North Face shorts served me well during that trip — climbing Ayers Rock, “fossicking” at Coober Pedy, and as a bathing suit cover-up at the Great Barrier Reef. In later years, they visited England, Portugal, Mexico, Canada, and many places in the U.S.

When the hem began to fray, I was forced to retire the shorts to “hangar duty,” but I continued to wear them while cleaning our plane and bumming around our local airport.

Last weekend, however, my trusty, dusty North Face shorts let me down. I put them on to help disassemble our 182 for its annual inspection — a messy job requiring comfortable clothing you can move in.

Imagine my shock(!) when I wiped a greasy hand across my rear and discovered a gaping hole playing peek-a-boo with my panties.

Dear North Face, I’m now fifty-two years old, well past the age when most people would find such a sight attractive. I’m sorry to inform you I can no longer wear your shorts.

Not even for hangar duty.

You’ll see below that I’ve saved you the distress of having to view the hole in situ by photographing my shorts without me inside.

Dear North Face, I cannot express how disappointed I am by this sad turn of events.  I loved my North Face shorts! For one thing, they still fit me after twenty-one years (a miracle rivaled only by those traveling pants in that book). These North Face shorts also seemed to get softer and softer each time I wore them. They were one of my favorite articles of clothing, and I’d hoped they would last forever.

Still, I have hope that all may not be lost because I remember an acquaintance saying that he once had a North Face tent which failed. He returned it, and you guys sent him a whole new tent!

So, I thought, wouldn’t it be great (for me, at least) if North Face had a similar program for their clothing? I’d be happy to return my well-loved, twenty-one-year-old shorts for a new pair!

Very truly yours,

Kym Lucas