Big

Still in the aftermath of my Initial Consultation yesterday. Surprisingly, Kathryn was much less like an American Idol panel than I feared. Perhaps there was some trepidation on my part that her inner man-hater would come out wielding Wolfgang Puck knives to slice and dice my existence into constituent atoms to give her the building blocks to create a stylish, mannered, charming emasculated Ken Doll (oh. I forgot “lobotomized”). This is what men inherently fear is the desire of All Women Everywhere who say things like, “You need a haircut,” “don’t wear the red shirt,” or who do that little eye roll/head shake combination.

So, essentially, Kathryn led me down the garden path painlessly. I still sense a trap, rather a multitude of traps. I see this as walking across a floor littered with loaded rat traps and I am the rat. I step lightly.

And for a guy my size I do step lightly. As well as Round, we determined that I was Big. Again, this will cause some of you to say things like, “duh” and “no shit, Sherlock” and again, I have some experience with the idea that I am not, as discussed, Kevin Costner in Bull Durham, no matter how much I want to be.

We did touch a little on the S word. Shopping. I am blessed with an extended attention span for a man when it comes to clothes shopping (I am talking Real Men, not Metrosexuals or Japanese Girly Men). I can sometimes go up to 10 minutes before the desire to flee, trap animals and eat their raw flesh overcomes me. And that is one of my more relaxed urges.

A visit to the Big Blue Retailer of the Gods is… well… encouraging me to dress down. I can get t-shirts in six different colours up to 3X (to make me feel Small and Square) easily, any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Nice Clothes, well that’s another matter. The mere existence of 3X t-shirts says to me, okay, we acknowledge Big Round Guys exist. Even Really Big Round Guys, of which I am not. I’m actually, I think, kind of average for a Big Round Guy.

Nice Clothes have to have 19” necks on them to feel and look right around me. Forget about the fact that shirts with 19” necks tend to have sleeves made for knuckle-dragging length arms. So my arms are short for my neck – luck of the draw. What pisses me off is that in the standard shipping lot of 1 Gazillion of each item of clothing a typical Big Blue Retail Store receives, there will be 2 shirts with a 19” neck.

The same holds true for more upscale men’s stores also. I spoke with a manager who had some Great Shirts, but not in my size. “Well we only get two of those, because we only sell two of most things in that size.”

Um.

The stupidity speaks for itself.