Buckle of my belt buckled under pressure

Something happened last week that gave me a whole new perspective about the phrase "buckle under pressure".

Of late, I have been using a belt that is black on one side and brown on the other. So all one needs to do is to switch the buckle and you get to wear the color of your choice.

These belts come with two methods by which the switching of sides happens. In the most common method, the buckle clamps on to one end of the belt strip. To switch sides, you push a small "lever" and un-clamp it from the belt strip. You then clamp it back to the same end of the belt strip, but you would have first changed the sides.


In the second method, the buckle itself comes with a small bearing and is tightly nailed on to the belt strip. So to switch sides, one simply has to rotate the buckle along this bearing and you are done. It is quite simple.


The belt that I have, belongs to the first type. So, after the excess usage over the last 2 years, the portion of the belt strip where the buckle clamped itself, started to get thin.

It was not just the age factor that caused this erosion, but also the sheer pressure that was being exerted on the belt whenever it was on my waist. Clearly, the buckle could not handle this extra pressure and it started clawing away the portion of the belt with its clamp made of metal teeth.

And one fine day last week, when I stepped out to work, I noticed that the buckle had detached itself from one end and was hanging in front of me, still holding on to the other end. The 3 images below would convey the situation clearly.



I quickly corrected the situation and went to office.

Things seemed fine till I reached work. After having my breakfast, I went to wash my hands and found that the belt was back to the unwanted state that it attained earlier in the day.

To avoid any further embarrassment, I took out the belt and went belt-less the whole day. I came home and cut off the portion of the belt that was losing its thickness. Now, the buckle was back, clamping itself on to a fresh portion of the strip. And to be on the safer side, I let the buckle remain as is and went without a belt for another day.

I felt really odd on both the days without the belt. Wearing formal shirts tucked into formal trousers somehow felt incomplete without a belt. There was also the perennial problem of the trouser not being held at the waist - or the neighborhood on my body that may have been classified as a waist when I was born.

Anyways, I am now back to normal with my belt in place. But I need to plan for a backup and get 2 new belts. I think I am pretty much done with the two-sided belts, unless of course, I get one with the buckle of the aforementioned second type.