I have had this dark forest green winter coat for years. I needed a good and warm coat if I was to teach environmental education classes outside in the Minnesota winter. My dad got it for me as a Christmas gift in 1997 from Cabelas. It has been a good coat, but recently it has started to show wear and tear. The zipper is falling off and the pull busted off. It is a very heavy duty coat that doesn't allow for much flexibility. Thus, I started the search for a new winter coat.
Does this post seem boring yet? Trust me when I say that it will get better. I went to Scheels with my family and I tried on many coats. The main brand name at Scheels is Columbia. I found a nice coat on sale in February. It was a fleece lined coat that could be unzipped when spring comes around. The shell was weather proof enough for me. I am going to use it basically as a winter coat that I could use in the urban environment. I will keep the big green machine for extreme winter adventures.
I have been wearing it for about three weeks when I could take it no more. The coat had a strange and unusual flaw. I still had the receipt, but I threw the tags away. I was hoping that I could take it back for a refund or in store credit. Sarah was reluctant to go with me when I returned the coat to customer service. You will see why in a moment.
As I approached the customer service area I was greeted with a fine, "Hello there!" I was friendly and greeted the person with a nice hello back. You might be thinking that this is starting to sound a little like the Chinese restaurant experience. Well, it is a little like that I guess. The lady who helped me was smiling and ready for my story. As I began to speak my words I noticed that her smile fell right off of her face. What replaced the smile was a wrinkled mouth of confusion and disbelief. I told her that my coat was electrocuting me every time that I took the thing off, and that I had enough of this crazy shocking.
I know it is winter and it is dry, but come on man, I should not be shocking my crotch every time I take my coat off. I didn't mention where I got shocked to the nice lady. As I take my coat off, it is drawn across the front of me. As it goes by it shocks the parts that are sticking out the most.
The lady told me, after a few moments of processing the story, to wait right here because she had to go talk to her manager. The manager came out and I told him the same story. He too was a little confused and said that he has never heard anything like this before. He could see that I was serious and not there to rip anyone off so he let me look for another coat for in store credit. We thanked them and began our new search for a new coat.
I found a nice coat with no shocking tales to tell so I jumped at it and left happy. My new coat is a North Face flight jacket called HYVENT, and it cost me an additional twelve dollars. I have been pleased with this coat and will hopefully have it for many years.
4 comments:
The coat, of course, was only half of the story of the electrocution...
It needed another material to rub against, whatever else you were wearing. I'll go out on a limb and say the liner of the electro-coat was polar fleece. That stuff creates shocks like crazy, no matter how warm and great it is.
There was a stretch when I was wearing an all polar fleece pull-over that generated insane amounts of static electricity when I was in my car such that when I got out I'd be practically knocked down as soon as I touched the car. In addition the draw-string elastic at the waist would wrap itself around the seat recliner lever and resist my attempts to exit the car altogether.
Regardless, I learned I needed to ground myself before touching the car to avoid the zap, or at least control when they happened. And the coat remains in my possession, though it has been relegated to dirty duty.
I think if you had learned to touch something other than your crotch to dispel the static, the coat would have been fine. But that may be asking too much.
I tried to discharge but never with any luck. I am just glad that I didn't blow myself up at the gas station. I thought that it was too much to ask to have to discharge myself everytime I neede to take my coat off.
Plus, no matter what I wore underneath, the coat would stick to my clothes. I imagine that was also due to the static charge that was built up while wearing the coat. It was a bother.
Kudos to you for sticking, pun intended, to your polar fleece.
Your last point is an annoyance worth noting further. Pulling on any outerwear with a fleece lining leads to "sleeve scruntch." If I knew then what I know now, I never would have opted for the coat we got Lucy. The little girl grabs the long sleeves of her shirt before they make the trip through the sleeves of the coat, but there's still an odd scruntching that occurs, forcing me to probe around with my fingers up through the wrist cuffs, looking for that other side of the shirt cuff. What a pain.
the incident at the gas station could have gone far worse
your new coat sounds wonderful, but it will not power anything
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