07-047

 

Supersized In A 42-Regular Sort Of World

©2007

 

I have often said that I am big for my age. As a result, I have to shop in stores with names like Mr. Gargantuan, The Humongous Haberdashery, or Trousers, T-Shirts and Tents. It’s rarely a pleasant shopping experience.

 

I do not like shopping for clothes. Buying clothes is something I do just to make sure that I don’t cause extra-wide spread panic in the streets by going out in the nude. Besides, my birthday suit was obviously made before the invention of permanent press materials.

 

Sticking to casual wear means I don’t have to follow the whims of the fashion police. Jeans and a sweatshirt don’t go in or out of style. I don’t have to worry about what I wear on, before, or after Labor Day. I may never make it onto a best-dressed list, but at least I’ll be comfortable in my lack of chic.

 

I needed a new pair of jeans recently; nothing fancy, just an everyday pair of blue jeans. You find them in any department store or men’s wear outlet, except those stores always run out of denim before they get to my size.

 

When you shop in a regular store, you can find sizes like L, XL, and sometimes even XXL. Stores like Mr. Gargantuan have sizes that start where the others leave off and go all the way up to XXXXXXXXL. The label alone needs half a yard of material just to fit that many X’s on it.

 

An XXXXXXXXL leather jacket can put an entire species onto the endangered animal list. Stitch up the openings on a pair of XXXXXXXXL men’s bikini briefs, fill them with helium, and you have a giant balloon for a gay pride parade.

 

Mr. Gargantuan also charges gargantuan prices. A pair of jeans a couple of sizes smaller than mine might cost thirty dollars. Mine cost seventy-five.

 

There’s one thing that isn’t oversized by any extent of the imagination in these outlets. You’d think a store with a clientele that is taller and wider than average, might put in a change room that is also taller and wider.

 

I took a pair of jeans into a change room. It was slightly larger than a telephone booth. Just trying to get my shoes off, took more movements than a rhythmic gymnastics performance.

 

The salesman came to the door a couple of minutes after I went in and asked how the pants fit.

 

I said, “I don’t know yet. I bent over in here and I’m still trying to get the coat hook out of my butt.”

 

So, it really should come as no surprise that I don’t enjoy shopping for clothes. Having to pay so much more than the average person for a pair of jeans, not to mention performing a do-it-yourself prostate examination with a coat hook, just does not make for an enjoyable trip to the mall.

 

I suppose I could always make a toga out of a California-king fitted sheet.