Bras and Jeans

Today I had a personal day so I thought I'd go to the Mall and investigate jeans. I have waited until the point where any moment I will have thigh failure in my favorite jeans and since I don't particularly want this to happen at school, it seemed a good time as any. And since I also needed bras, I headed to the Mall.

It turns out that there is a new sizing system for jeans at Lane Bryant. For the under sized 14 crowd, this is a fatty store. Where people with the kind of ass I have can find jeans. But not easily.

Because when I got there all the jeans were color coded and sized strangely. Like, I am a 20. I know I am a 20 because when I look at pants, that's the size I get. Sometimes I am an 18 (yippee!) and sometimes a 22 (d'oh!) but almost always, I am a 20.

Except now I am a Yellow 4. WTF?

Here's how I became a Yellow 4: First the girl asked me if I knew what sized jeans I wore. I answered 20 because that's my size, or was. So she took out a tape measure and measured me. Then handed me a Yellow 7 and a Red 6. But I didn't understand why. Because they sell sizes 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28. By my calculation, a 7 was like a 26. And I am not a 26. I am a 20. But what did I know. I took both pairs and tried them on.

And they were huge. But here's the really odd bit. The Red 6? Much larger than the Yellow 7. WTF? So I told her they were too big. And she said, oh, you probably need a 5. Why a 5? I thought. I just had on a 7. Shouldn't I go down a bit slower? Or was I circling the target? I tried on the Yellow 5 and they were fine, but it was clear that within an hour or two, I'd be hitching them up. So I told her I needed something just a bit smaller. Oh, she said. Well, I wear a Red 4 because they do stretch out. And that's when I realized what had happened.

You see everyone who works at Lane Bryant is chunky. I don't think it's required, but it's definitely, if you'll pardon the pun, a Plus. And the thing about fat people is this: We all know we're fat, but we all believe that every other fat person is fatter than we are. So here was this obviously fat person (and let's face it, empirically fatter than I since the Red 6 was larger than the Yellow 7) who has decided that I am fatter than she because in her mind she's smaller than she is. And here am I judging my weight based on hers because in *my* mind I am not as fat as I am. But I can tell you this: I wear a smaller jeans size than she does!

And oddly, the bra shopping? Fairly painless. I found 3 bras, they fit fine, not as nice s Le Mystere, but 1/2 of the price so everyone's happy. And who knew? Despite my sized 44DD bras? I am a 4!