My girlfriend forced me (rightfully) to go shopping the other day.  In her opinion my clothing was no longer fashionable.  I guess this is the equivalent of clothing no longer being functional to a man.

While we’re shopping we go into an Old Navy.  That places is insane.  It’s like the IKEA of clothing stores.  If you want help, you’re on your own.  I get up the cash to pay for my 2.99  tighty whities (you know it mofo) and I ask the the manager if she has any sweatshirts without logos on them.  She smirks and says  “no they always say Old Navy on them”.  I thought it was a curious response because I wasn’t trying to be funny.

Then I ask her where the clothing for Old Navy is manufactured.  She seems a bit thrown off by this question at first but she manages to blurt out “Umm, I think they’re made in Toronto but I’m not sure.”  She then tries to busy herself  to avoid any more unusual questions.   I knew she was lying because of the impossibly low prices and the fact that her face was all red.  You could almost see the “what is company policy this question” look on her face.

I say to her “I don’t think these clothes are made in Canada at these prices.”  She doesn’t respond so I ask another employee where the clothing is manufactured.  He says “I dunno.  It should be printed on the label” implying I actually don’t know to look at the label when in reality I’m just trying to see if they’re willing to say the random ultra cheap labor Asian country out loud.

He looks at the label on the shirt he’s holding and he says “Cambodia” with a surprised look on his face.  The manager immediately shoots him a dirty look.  Then he looks at me and says “I don’t think we could afford Canadian labor”.   As I’m walking out of the store I say “you’re probably right.  paying your employees fair wages tends to be more expensive.”  He smiles and I walk out the happy owner of a pair of hand crafted Cambodian undies!  I bet you don’t have Cambodian underpants!

The moral of the story is that I like to pretend I’m a socially conscious smelly hippie sometimes.  Other times I like just causing a bit of a scene because I don’t feel socially conscious/smelly enough. From now on I’m going to shop at the ultra-hipster socially conscious American Apparel because I heard pretending like you care is cool.  I heard catering to socially conscious urban hipsters with cash to burn can actually be profitable. When I got home I looked at the labels on the clothes I had just purchased.  I had three pairs of boxers all produced in different countries. Indonesia, Cambodia and India.  Can it possibly make sense to manufacture/produce the same item in three separate countries? And by the way I don’t actually wear tighty whities.