First, the tl;dr:
Cold Front Clothing is trash.
Shopping at Wal-Mart is often a strange experience. Compared to years ago when the first one or two popped up in my town, they’re much less “hood” than they used to be.
The last one I went to was downright cyber-corporate beautiful, despite being in what I thought was the worst location in town possible: squarely between the overpass, the mental hospital, an empty lot (which used to be a halfway house), and the DMV.
Note: I have since realized that the location attributes listed above are meaningless. Here’s a life hack for you, on the house: The most important factor you need to consider when approaching a Wal-Mart is its proximity to section-8 apartment housing.
That aside, in any Wal-Mart, no matter how new or nice, you can always detect a subtle undercurrent; a sort of desperation (perhaps only for good deals, perhaps something more serious) mixed with whatever that feeling is called when you sense that humanity is being herded, warehoused, replaced.
You can’t help but feel that even though this coconut water isn’t THAT cheap, it’s gotta be cheaper than at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, right? But what if we are paying in some other way that we can’t detect? As in, spiritually? OMG, what is all this REALLY costing us?
When it comes to the goods themselves, however you’ll notice that Wal-Mart actually carries a lot of brand-name stuff. Things like potato chips or diapers don’t demand much brain power but when it comes to more specialized purchases, one can’t help but ask:
“Did Wal-Mart step its game up here by carrying this Brand A merch, or did Brand A make a low-tier product in order to sell to Wal-Mart?”
This is the crux I was at when I first saw Cold Front gear. I errored on the side of faith and figured it was a new flagship quality brand, and here’s all it took to fool me:
A rubberized logo on the tag.
Yup. The little square tag with the logo on it is embossed with blue grippy rubber, and to me that just felt “legit.” Through some asinine mental leap, I decided that no one would go that far, production-wise, for a mere tag unless the rest of the product was equally good.
In other words, I’m an idiot Wal-Martian.
In my haste and mindless assumption I scooped up two beanies, a stretchy cap and a balaclava, because winter. Custer made better snap decisions.
The beanies are trash. The inner layer moves freely in relation to the outer layer and vice versa, which is par for low-quality beanies of any make. The end result is that any time during placement, adjustment, or natural movement, part of it will maintain grip on your head but the rest of it will slide around, resulting in a hat-prolapse.
My Medical schooling is low-level but I’ve never heard of a prolapse being a good thing, ever. Headgear is no exception. The one beanie I was wearing (for only 3 weeks) had already failed at the seam, leaving a hole about the size of a newborn duckling.
The balaclava is a joke. The nose is not sculpted, which means it’s just a rectangular panel that smashes the doors to the booger factory. This also leaves gaping holes on either side of your nose. So we’re having gapes AND prolapses now? Thanks, Cold Front.
The head cover layer crosses the face mask right along the ear which makes it a true annoyance for anything requiring a helmet, like anything fun and winter-related.
You gotta hand to them for troll-engineering the overall fit, however: too loose and too tight at the same time. I am fully unable to understand this, depite having spent years listening to the musings of men like Livy, Hawkings and Shaggy 2 Dope.
It all became clear to me just the other day when I saw a giant clearance box, a mass grave, of ColdFront headgear. All the colors of the rainbow. Like a Baskin-Robbins of suck.
I would have taken a photo but it was like passing roadkill: half your brain is mesmerized, the other half puts up a trauma-block, and the next thing you know, you’re back at home cyring. Like usual.
In a fit, I threw out both beanies. I did save the stretchy hat to wipe up stray piss, and now I leave the balaclava here on the floor (as shown in the photo).
I threw it there so I could literally look down on this product—from the furthest distance possible. I will never pick it up. I already bent over once, when I bought the damned thing to begin with.
I should have known that Cold Front (CF) was a Charlie Foxtrot.
Thanks for nothing, Cold Front.
Sincerely,
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