Somebody needs to be in charge of making sure things fit right in this country. Sizes that manufacturers put on clothes, shoes and things like that seem to be just estimates instead of accurate dimensions of the products.
There are extra-large shirts and coats in my closet that are too little for me and some large clothing that’s way too big. They are various brands, so it’s obvious that Nike, Under Armour, Polo and all those folks use different measurements when they make stuff.
My size 12 Adidas shoes are too tight, and the size 11 New Balance fit pretty well. Width doesn’t seem to mean much. I have shoes marked wide that are too narrow and some labeled medium that are plenty wide.
All this might seem trivial in the overall scope of things, but I don’t think so. It’s time for consumers to start demanding precise sizing of products like we used to have in the old days.
When I was growing up, baseball caps came in exact sizes. I could get a size six-and-three-quarters New York Yankees baseball cap from Sears that fit the same as the size six-and-three-quarters Springhill Sports caps I got at their concession stand.
Caps now come with straps and gaping holes in the back that let folks make them much smaller or a lot bigger. The same cap can be adjusted to fit a new born baby or a full grown buffalo.
Those are just not authentic caps. Mickey Mantle wore a size seven-and-a-quarter cap with no straps or holes in the back. We need caps like that again that can be shaped to perfection by leaving rubber bands around the bills of the caps at night.
When the bigwigs at Eddie Bauer, Reebok and other companies read this, as I’m sure they will, I hope they will also consider my suggestion to quit making “slim fit” apparel.
I have seen a lot of skinny people in my day, but clothes that come in slim fit sizes would squeeze the life out of the thinnest humans on the planet.
My qualifications as an expert on improperly-sized apparel began as a kid when my mother and other neighborhood ladies started a hand-me-down clothes network. We all wore things that had been outgrown by siblings and neighbors and passed on to us.
When I finished with the hand-me-downs, they were handed down to my brother. I was always just thankful that I didn’t have an older sister.
Some of the articles of used clothing I got swallowed me, as my mother would say, and others were apparently slim fit.
Even on the rare occasions when my mother bought me new clothes for church or funerals, she got them two or three sizes too big so they would last. She said I would grow into them.
This problem with clothes not being sized right is more serious than ever because so many things are being bought online sight unseen. There’s no way with internet shopping to try things on, and sending stuff back or swapping for different sizes is nerve-wracking.
Things not fitting right these days goes beyond problems with clothes and shoes. Try taking the cap off a bottle of vitamins or mouthwash or removing the top from a jar of pickles. Those tops were clearly not built or designed to fit the things they are on. You can’t get them off with a sledgehammer.
Some kind of government regulation is also needed for these food storage containers. Regina and I cook big batches of gumbo or soup and put a lot of it in the freezer for later. The containers might work once but never again.
When we try to reuse them, there’s not a single screw-on, push on or snap-down top that will fit on any of the bottoms. It doesn’t matter if they are color coded, square, rectangular or round, the tops will not fit the bottoms.
We have dozens of tops and bottoms in drawers and cabinets. I spent an entire LSU versus Ole Miss football game one Saturday trying to match them up and finally threw them all out.
My mother tried to prepare me when I was a boy to live in a world where everything would become wrong-sized. But I give up. America needs a guy who has been agitated by his slim fit pants to be the czar of making sure things are the right size.