Randy and I just bought him a new dark suit, a necessary purchase as he’s now 30 pounds too small for the black suit he used to wear and tomorrow he will be conducting his first funeral service (although he’s been in ministry for 17 years, he’s never been “in charge” of a funeral). The whole excercise was straightforward. If we were shopping for clothes for me, however, it wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.
I’m short, 5′ 2″, and not anywhere near a size 6 so finding something that’s fashionable and that fits properly is often a challenge. I understand that the average American woman is around a size 12 or 14 yet every woman I know that runs about those sizes seems to think that she’s too big (unless she happens to be about 6 feet tall and a size 12 is “reasonable”). I’m not speaking about health issues here; I’m talking about finding a decent dress to wear.
I envied Randy as he stood in front of the three-way mirror, the salesperson adding chalk marks to the bottom of Randy’s new trousers. Randy looked amazing, very George-Clooney-esque standing there in his white pinpoint dress shirt and lightly pinstriped black suit. It took a mere twenty minutes to decide on a suit and that’s only because we had to whittle away as options the two-button jacket styles and the solid black suits. If women could only have a “uniform” like a suit that could make us look invariably gorgeous maybe we wouldn’t obsess so much about how we look in the myriad of dressy outfits which we have to concoct. On the other hand, that might go against some innate instinct most women seem to have to shop and one shouldn’t fight Mother Nature too much.
So, to those men who grumble about putting on a suit and tie for the office or special occasions, in the immortal words of the marvelous, not-anywhere-near-a-size-6 singer Nell Carter, I say, “Gimme a break!” You guys have got it made.