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Saturday, May 16, 2009

Not a matter of body image

I have been hoodwinked, conned, bamboozled, tricked. I have been deceived into believing a terrible lie. Thanks a lot, world.

You know when you go to conferences or events and they're all, "Here, have a tee shirt with our cause inscribed on it!" And you're all, "Wewt, proof I was here in tee shirt form!" You get people from the event to sign them, or you wear them to promote the event. You know those tee shirts? I have approximately twenty of those tee shirts. Yeah, they're awesome. The problem?

They don't fit! 

Because this is what happens: I get signed up for the event. When they ask for a tee shirt size, my mom puts "large." (I think she thinks I'm fat. It's okay.) And then I say, "Mom, I'm not a size large." And she goes, "Well, they shrink. You're a growing girl. I don't want it to be too tight. You have broad shoulders. Who knows what kind of shirt it is? What's if it's youth sizes, then you'll want a large." And this seems reasonable, so I agree. I get the large. And, shocker, it's too big.

When I was younger, especially, I had growth spurts every other two weeks. All of my clothes were always too small, it was sad. So I always bought everything a size larger in anticipation that I would grow into it. But then, I stopped growing. And somehow I forgot the reason for getting everything a size larger, and just persisted in doing so out of habit! I've never worn a size small in anything, and so I was unable to reconcile my mind to the fact that I might be a tee shirt size small. And yet, somehow, the extra larges and the larges and the mediums were always too big and never seemed to fit . . .

So at Student Life Missions Camp I decided to break the cycle. I walk up to the table. I can see the actual shirts. I know which one will fit! I say, "Small, please." And the guy behind the table says, "Are you sure?" . . . arg! Yes, I am sure! After spending all of my teenage existence with size large Teen Pact shirts, size extra large NCFCA shirts, size medium missions trip shirts, and a perpetual fear of the size small tee shirt, yes, I am sure! I am not going to believe the lie that that is not my size. I freaking want the small!

So he gave it to me.

And you know what?

It fits perfectly. 

Just sayin'!

8 comments:

Michael Au-Mullaney said...

...and then I found twenty bucks ;)

I'm pretty sure it's because you're tall, people don't like people who are taller then them. They feel threatened so they want you to at least look stupid. :P

Anonymous said...

Good for you! Yay! I laughed out loud when i saw the "fat" comment. You are so far from that. I love how this is after a post about how your mom's always right. I always ask for the small, too, but it still looks like a large. Annoying.

Micah E. said...

Same story here.

But I have no idea what to do with the medium size shirts... because they look stupid on me, but they validate my life experience.

"arg! Yes, I am sure!"

I can't figure out why I have so little trouble picturing the tone there.

Micah E. said...

Also, I'm just gonna say it, but this was better than getting hoodwinked the other way. Yeah.

Liz said...

Just knowing that you won the day made me feel good. It goes to show that people can be very wrong when it comes to sizes. ;-)

A&A said...

"...and then I found twenty bucks ;)" Actually after that I lost twenty bucks. It was sad. True story.

"I always ask for the small, too, but it still looks like a large. Annoying." IKR. Are these companies allergic to normal shirt sizes? I feel like there should be some standard for clothes sizes. (I.e. Delia's sizes . . . the size five jeans are the equivalent of some places' size zero. Consistency haters?) That's the source of this problem.

K-Mac said...

Munchkin?

miller_schloss said...

I did the SAME THING! Good for you for realizing it now. It was well into college before I realized I was a small. My husband says I dressed like a doofus in high school...he's sort of right. : ) My college roommate (now my sister in law) helped me learn how to dress myself! We still rely on each other to buy each other the awesomest clothes.