Women's Clothes, Part 2

For All the Guys Who have Wondered how Women’s Clothes are Sized, Part 2

I understand the terms Petite, Misses, Junior, and Women’s when it comes to sizing female clothing. I did not set out to know this vast array of information. I did not desire to become an amateur expert on ladies clothing. I was forced into it…against my will…pounded into me like a round steak (hey, I never I said I did not know cooking).

I remember it like yesterday. It all seemed so innocent way back in early 1997. What started out as a wonderful family gathering and conversation turned ugly…fast. Tornadoes do not appear any more abruptly; lightening cannot strike any faster; two-year-olds cannot disappear any more quickly…than my mother-in-law’s face can turn into a death gamma ray. Even more astounding than the quickness of her change, is the silence by which her destructive force to human flesh is carried out.

I, sitting in the den, in my chair, could not help but hear a conversation between my wife and her mother. They were discussing an oft-talked about subject among womanhood, bodily expansion and how to control it. The both of them had just gone through periods whereby they were not only able to stop it, but to force it into somewhat of a submissive withdrawal. Included in this discussion was the subtopic of the need to buy clothes of reduced size.

Allow me to sidestep here just a moment and give you a little insight as to how my forthcoming logic will come to be. When a man goes and buys a suit, he is given an array of categories from which to find his size. For instance, I am five foot, six inches tall and have a fifty-inch chest. I wear a 50 Short suit. If I were five-foot nine, I would wear a 50 Regular. Short is for the man of below average height, Regular is for the average height man, Tall is for, you guessed it, the above average height man. In addition we, have Extra Tall, Big and Tall, Portly, etc. You can see the logic in how men’s sizes are named. The common denominator is the chest or waist size. Now back to impending trouble.

Very innocently, I embarked upon the adventure to add what, I thought, would be a somewhat complimentary comment. My mother-in-law, who shall remain nameless to protect my keester, had just said, “I am now wearing a ‘something’ W (I am not stating the actual size because though I may have been born at night, it was not last night). Are you ready for my illustrious remark? Now remember, I am a man and accustomed to men’s sizes. I said (remembering that panty buying episode), “Boy, that’s neat. It is about time they started labeling women’s clothing with some intelligence. That is neat. You actually have the size ‘something’ WIDE.”

I am not sure what came first, the change in countenance on Mom-in-law’s face or the sensation of feeling flesh pull away from my cheek bones and eye sockets. I do not know what was worse, the deathly silence as though time itself just ended or the burning sensation I felt as lasers, from her eyes, pierced my body. I believe I only lived because my naivete was genuine and my innocence, real.

I lost track of all time. I do not know if it were seconds, hours, days, or weeks, but I soon found myself getting a crammed course in female clothing size structure. I did not want it. I did not ask for it. It was like a…sentence, a sentence for a crime committed. I do not remember the arraignment, the trial, and the verdict, ET all. I just know that I have been rehabilitated (or brainwashed) to know my place with women’s sizes. Gentlemen, regardless how it may appear, the W doesn’t stand for wide.