E I G H T

Well FUCK ME RUNNING, ladies and gentlemen!!!

Today I went to buy new shorts... my 12s from last summer were falling off and I couldn't stand it. (Calling in sick does have it's advantages some times)... so a solo-jaunt down to the Old Navy was in order.

I pulled many pairs of 10s off the racks... Short, shorter, shortest... HA! Bopped on back to the fitting rooms and began the ever agonizing ritual of standing in a little box with a full length mirror and VERY poor lighting while pulling clothes on and off repeatedly for your inspection.

And they were all... every one of them... too freakin big.
They didn't fit in the waist, they bagged in the ass, and somehow, somewhere, somthing in my brain finally clicked (after pair #7 I think) and I realized I needed a different size...

I needed the next size smaller.

So I started throwing them all over the door and the most wonderful Old-Navy Girls began combing the shelves for "the next size smaller" for me.

"The next size smaller."

"The Next Size Smaller."

(you know what I'm talking about here, I know you do... )

"THE NEXT FUCKING SIZE SMALLER!!!"

Every woman who has EVER struggled with her weight knows instinctively that there is a perceived gap between the girls who wear the single digit sizes, and those who wear double digit sizes. The petite girls wear sizes "zero" "two" "four" "six" and "eight," and then the rest of us... those of us who fall in the cagegory of "10 - 30" are not petite and don't get all the uber-cute clothes that the little girls do. I believe 28 or 30 is the point at which they stop even numbering for fear of offending us and just begin telling us that we're "XXXXL" and don't deserve real numbered sizes, or whatever the fuck ever. Yeah right... like we don't know what it really means... fuckers!

In any case... I have, since highschool (I graduated HS in 1992), been a double digit girl.

Getting back into a 10 about 6 months ago was a FABULUOS victory for me because that is literally the smallest size I can ever remember purchasing for myself... there may have been the errant 9 in there when the "painted on jeans" look was in... but otherwise I've been a 12+, and all the way up to an 18+ at my heaviest, for my entire adult life.

But today the 10 didn't fit.

Today, the "next size smaller" was the 8. The first single digit size... The holy grail of some of us who are working so hard mentally, emotionall and physically to become somthing other than the fat girl... the single-digit size...

and I took those shorts and that FREAKING SHORT ASS "beach-skort" from the happy to help me, size zero, Old-Navy Girl and every single one of those fuckers fit.

comfortably.

and with room.

and there were the most cheasy - god awful - hormonal - female tears running down my cheeks as I tried desperately not to burst into joyful sobs right there in the dressing room and really freak out the Old-Navy Girls. So I picked them all up, put them in my bag and bought every last one of them. There ended up being six... three shorts and three skirts.

And for once, I looked in the mirror of a dressing room and I didn't see a fat girl. I saw me... and I am a size 8... and who the fuck cares if I really needed that boost to my ego, because I did, I needed it... and I fucking love it.

Posted by Lexy at May 13, 2004 08:21 PM