I have a pair of pants, a rather nice pair of pants, actually. They’re white, well, off white, and fit me really well. But I rarely ever wear them. You know why? They have a button fly.

Now, I’m all for ‘retro’ or ‘vintage’ style stuff. It’s great when clothes use patterns or fabrics that were cool in the past and give them a modern twist. I love it that ’60s fashion especially is coming back in style. Go-go boots, bell bottoms… Name something in ’60s fashion that wasn’t awesome.

Well. Yeah. Never mind. There was quite a bit in the ’60s that wasn’t awesome. INCLUDING THE BUTTON FLY. You know what? I’m not even entirely sure that they used button flies in the 1960s. I have a hard time believing that the zipper is some sort of advanced technology that only came about after the moon landing.

Button flies suck. Plain and simple. It takes forever to … unbutton your pants? Is that even the right word? No, because unbuttoning your pants is when you actually unbutton them. I just found another reason I hate button flies: the verb they perform is redundant. You can’t unbutton your pants and then have to unbutton them three more times. It should be unbutton, unzip, there you go. Pants = off.

When I’ve got go pee, I don’t want to have to stand there for three hours trying to unzip m… unbutton my pants so I can go. I want it clean and simple. Unzip, pee, zip. Done. None of this ‘unbuttoning 4 times and then rebuttoning four buttons just to get your pants on’ business.

And now, believe it or not, button flies are somehow making a comeback. The pants in question that I own are about 7 years old. This was a while ago. But now, apparently there’s a resurgence of button fly usage in mens’ and women’s fashion. When will the button fly’s reign of terror end?

Please. For the love of god. Please stop putting button flies on pants, shorts or anything that goes on the lower half of my body. Pleeeeease. I think it’s about time we take our clothes-closing technology into the 20th century and quit using the outdated button fly.