I was dragging my husband with me shopping the other day. If he doesn’t like something I wear he lets me know it so I decided he should go with me while I picked an outfit out, to bypass the insult. We were wandering around the department store where I was trying to find some new t-shirts. Well that might seem easy enough but I wanted a shirt that you couldn’t see through, that you could wash and that came past my belly button so that the top of my ass wouldn’t show every time I bent down.
My sweet husband picked up a t-shirt and held it up for me, “I like this it must be about your size.”
Bless his heart he had picked up a small. “A small are you kidding, have you looked at that shirt.” He held it up and I would have sworn it wouldn’t fit a young child but I looked around and we were in the women’s department.
“Well how about this one,” he reached for a medium.
“A medium, who do you think I am, Paris Hilton?’
“What do you mean you aren’t a medium?”
“A medium, I hate to break it to you but for the last five years I have been an extra large, not a large but an extra large, and god forbid I ever throw it in the dryer.” I grabbed an extra large shirt and held it up to me.
I could see his confusion. I am 5”5’ and weigh 135 pounds on a good day, 137 on a bad one. A weight that shouldn’t be considered extra large. A weight that wasn’t considered extra large ten years ago. But that was before the conspiracy.
I am convinced that all the clothing manufacturers got together and said. Hey, how can we make the American woman feel even worse about herself? We can resize all her clothes. We will base all our measurements on a thirteen year old girl. And since everything is manufactured abroad the manufacturers can send anything over here slap any old size on it and save on materials! It doesn’t mean that the clothes will be cheaper. I keep hoping that since everything is made in China this is only a translation problem and XL really means Extra Lucky.
In the meantime, we the American consumer will grit our teeth and swallow a Zanax every time we have to go to the mall. It just means that if we find anything that fits we will wear it until the seams dissolve. As for gifts I never give anyone clothes anymore, I don’t want my friends to unwrap something labeled XL and get insulted.
Yes, our destruction is complete, the sexy, curvy American woman has been replaced by a botoxed, bleached, anorexic model. So I give up and surrender and wait for the day when I become an extra, extra large or extra, extra lucky.
Ray and Cara have also produced the number one guide on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
The Desert Woman calls it inspiring.
Click the link to find the DVD Camino de Santiago a Walkers Guide at Amazon
About the author:
Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel
About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative,
a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story
all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people
whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle
Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation
in a book!"
Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships
Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships
Click the link to find at
Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany
Click the link to find at Amazon BrazilClick here to find at Amazon Canada
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany
Ray and Cara have also produced the number one guide on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
The Desert Woman calls it inspiring.
Click the link to find the DVD Camino de Santiago a Walkers Guide at Amazon
