The Horrors of Shopping for Clothes and Shoes

Walmart, oh, Walmart, where are the extra small sweatpants?

If ever you thought clothes shopping was a joyous occasion, you must either have deluded yourself, or not be of the size that all the clothing manufacturers have conspired to discriminate against. If you love skin-tight denim with pre-ripped holes, and your pants size is 8 or higher, rejoice, for the clothing manufacturers are your best friend. You have endless styles of jeans, skinny, straight, boot cut, ripped and not. You have numerous choices of sweatpants and active wear pants. All the color selections are available to you. No alterations necessary.

But alas, if you wear a size 4, prepare yourself for clothing discrimination.

At Ross and Beals, there is nothing that will fit you, since you're larger than a 14-year-old, but apparently not as large as a woman is supposed to be. And when you go to Walmart, you finally find styles of pants that are satisfactory, but you may have to clean out their stock of size 4 jeans in your style, and still have to alter the sweatpants because the "S, 4/6" is actually just a 6 and they don't carry XS. When you find the one section of active wear pants that carries an XS, your choice of color is narrowly limited because even here, where they have XS, the bulk of the stock still leans heavily towards average to large waist people, very obviously discriminating against small waist people.

In the end, you buy the only two size 4 straight cut jeans on the shelf and resolve that you have no choice but to alter the sweat pants so the 2" too big waist doesn't slip off. And wonder why on earth the clothing manufacturers hate small waist people so much. And you feel sorry for the next small waist person walking into Walmart to replace their worn out pants because you've narrowed the selection even further.

And then there's the discrimination against people with big feet. Why, oh, why is the 9 1/2 section so small? And if your foot happens to be larger than mine, your luck is just the same or worse.

Why is it that the five size 9 1/2s on the shelf at Ross are either hideous or acquired from extortioners exploiting the necessity of big-footed people? Why is it that I must constantly settle for a less than ideal shoe or continue to walk around in shoes with holes in the sole? More than once, we've searched store after store for a pair of shoes to replace my worn out pair, only to come home with a cute pair for my small-footed sister instead.

Do the shoe manufacturers think that big-footed people only care for hideous styles? Do they think we can't pull off a cute shoe the way a size 6 person can? Do they think we have endless funds to pay $60 for a pair of sneakers? Must we bring back foot binding so we can have all the choices of the small-footed people?

This is discrimination. Put on weight and bind your feet, or you will never find clothes and shoes.

P.S. While the experiences recounted in this post are 100% true to life, the claims of discrimination are satirical and intended to illustrate that anyone can find anything about which to claim discrimination. Lets just get over ourselves, stop focusing on the differences that divide us and focus instead on the things that unite us.

P.P.S If you've ever wondered why I wear so many skirts and only own a handful of shoes, read the above post.