Fall into the Gap.

When you're tall, there are few places to find reasonably-priced pants. The Gap and Banana Republic are two excellent options, as they carry tall sizes and their pants typically fall between the $50-$100 range. Not cheap, by any means, but reasonable. And as I'm sure we can all agree, good pants are worth a little extra.

Because they rarely carry long lengths in their stores, I've pretty much devoted myself to shopping online. The good people at the Gap, Inc. distribution center probably know me by name, because I've been ordering from them for about eight years, and my orders are always huge. I can't just pick out a pair of jeans online and assume they'll fit — I usually order at least four pairs of jeans or pants at a time so I have some options. And then I send whatever doesn't work back — which is totally painless, given Gap's 90-day free returns policy. All you have to do is print out the handy little return label and drop it off at UPS within 90 days of your purchase. Previously you had the option of returning it by mail (at a cost) or to the store. When they eliminated the option of returning to the store I was a little bummed, but they made up for it by implementing the free returns by mail policy.

I have continued ordering online from the Gap throughout my pregnancy, because as previously stated/whined about, it is nearly impossible to find long length maternity pants. The Gap has the corner on this market, so at the end of February (just as the rest of my jeans were starting to look seriously ratty), I placed a big order with them — three pairs of jeans, a shirt, and a pair of chinos. Two pairs of the jeans worked out, as did the shirt, but the remaining pair of jeans was not cute, and the chinos, while attractive, were not really seasonally-appropriate. But I decided to hang on to them for a while, because I thought maybe once the weather started to turn I'd be happy to have them. And I figured the 90 day return policy would actually cover the rest of my pregnancy, so if I never got around to wearing them while pregnant, I could still return them.

Well, shoot.

Last week I decided to return them — I hadn't thought about them once since I tried them on in February, which I felt was a pretty good indication that I didn't need them. So I went online to print out my free UPS label, and found that not only do returns by mail cost $6.00 again, they have to be received within 45 days of purchase.

What?

I subscribe to the Gap, Banana and Old Navy emails. I am a very regular (and I would assume, valued) customer. Those stores make a crapload of money off of me. And they didn't even have the decency to let me know they changed their return policy?

I quickly did some math: I ordered the pants 40 days ago, so I was still in the clear. But what if I hadn't decided to return them last week and I missed my 45-day window of opportunity? Would I be stuck with two pairs of pants I don't want? (I realize there is probably a lesson in here somewhere about not abusing the return policy...)

Anyway, I understand that the economy is total crap and all that, but they could have at least let their regular online customers know they changed the policy. And they could also reinstate the in-store returns policy. As of right now, there is no free way to return unwanted merchandise. Which is really pretty unfair, especially to those of us who have to shop online because they don't carry long lengths in store.

Being tall is difficult enough. But being tall and pregnant? WAAAAAAAH.

Next up: my rant regarding Motherhood Maternity's exchanges only policy. What the heck.