The Fashion Industry is NUTS

So, thanks to health issues and my back & knee problems, my doctor has been really getting after me to lose weight. While I haven't lost as much as he'd like, I HAVE managed to lose 47 lbs in the last year. I'm still a big old heifer, but I'm working on it. Most of my weight loss is due to changes in diet- I don't like exercising, especially when I'm in chronic pain. I think it's a mental block, remembering how mean the other kids were in gym classes back in my younger schooldays, but I digress.

I had established a clothing moratorium for the year a few months ago, when I was trying to start decluttering and realized that most of the clothing piled up in the laundry room & spare room was stuff I either stopped wearing because I had gotten too fat for it, or was stuff I had simply forgotten I owned. There were also a lot of things that were basically duplicates- how many versions of black & purple t-shirts are there, and did I really need to hang on to ALL of them? So a LOT of stuff went to goodwill.

Just for giggles, I tried on a few of the things I had outgrown. Holy cow, they fit again!  Some of them even better than before! I still gave a fair chunk away (mostly things I wore when I worked in retail and/or used for LARP costumes), but kept some of the things I'm still likely to wear.

My current job is techincally clerical, but it's in kind of a warehouse environment. We can, and often do, handle large/dirty items, so jeans are the best clothing choice. Here's where things start getting a little tricky. Because I'm so tall AND fat, appropriately fitting pants of any style are hard to come by. And due to the occasional roughness of my job, I've had to throw away some damaged pairs. Even worse are the pairs I had to toss after my weight gain caused them to explode in ways that could not be repaired. I managed to find some replacements in the larger size- even though I was working on weight loss, I still had to wear something to work.

Well, now I've lost this weight, and my 'fat' jeans are WAAAAAAAAY too big. The pairs of jeans I had outgrown are all either about to fall apart from forcing myself into them even when I was too fat, or are actually slightly too big. *happy dance* So, since a nearby store that carried plus sizes appears to be having a going out of business sale, I thought I'd treat myself to a couple of new pairs of jeans. Not buying anything but jeans- the moratorium on everything else stands until I lose more weight & keep it off.  (Well, maybe a tie-dyed t-shirt or two. I've worn most of mine to bits)

So I went to this store- let's call them Mashin' Mug instead of giving them a plug- and hoped for the best. I've found good things there in the past, but there's also a lot of drek, and their sizes are fairly inconsistent. Also, WHO decides what is stylish? Weird colorblock combinations might pass for ok on a skinny girl, but don't work as well on Ample Annie. Not all fat girls want to wear clothes with sequins & beads, in eye-popping prints/colors that call attention to our figure flaws. NOBODY looks good in Capri pants and I'd give thanks daily if that look went away forever.  AND booty shorts- you know the ones that are so short & tight that they're basically glorified underwear- need to go away. Preferably for everyone, but especially plus sized versions. Just because you CAN make something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Ditto for wearing it. Remember the eye trauma caused by biker shorts in the 90's? Same thing.

Where was I? Oh yeah, jeans. Nobody makes plain simple jeans any more either. You have to decide between skinny, boot leg, low waisted, wide legged, studded, embroidered, beaded, straight legged (as rare as intelligible lyrics in most rap ditties), acid wash, indigo, stonewashed, button-fly,  decaf, mocha, and whoops, I just took us to $tarbuck$. There are too many choices. Unless you're built like me, in which case you pretty much are stuck choosing whatever goes over your butt and can be zipped over your gut. Bonus points if they're miraculously the right length and/or you can bend over without mooning anyone, the pants exploding, or having a permanent zipper indentation on your stomach.

So, knowing the store's tendency to have erratic sizing, I found several styles of jeans to try on, and managed to get most of them in 3 sizes. My former fat size, the size I'm currently in which is a little loose, and a size down in a rush of optimism. I even managed to score a couple of pairs of Tall plus sizes which is as rare as a drama free day in the life of Lindsay Lohan. The lethargic dressing room attendant looked at the 12-15 pairs of jeans I was lugging and waved me in. So much for 5 items or less.

Anybody want to guess what happened next? No? Well, I'll tell you- NOTHING fit. Not one single frigging pair, not even in a 'not quite right, but I can make do' kind of way. The size down were WAY too small. The size up- aka fat me- were WAY too big. The size I currently wear were either too big or too small depending on the style of the jeans.

Do I need to explain how demoralizing that is? I walked into the store feeling good about myself for having lost 47 GADDAMNED POUNDS, and walked out feeling like a circus fat lady. Seriously, I was almost in tears. And the urge to go eat my way through a buffet and then a bakery was strong. Sanity, and sympathy from my mommy prevailed. I did have a bowl of ice cream, but just one, not the size of a soup tureen, and with no garnishes of any sort. 

Then I started thinking about the issue. I am NOT the problem. (not entirely) The fashion industry, who consider anything over a size 4 to be obese, is the problem. So I mentally composed this letter to Mashin Mug:

Dear Jackholes,

Sorry to hear you're going out of business. Actually, I'm not surprised. Your sizes have always been off, no matter what you claim, and you never stocked enough of the larger sizes to make it worth coming in and trying things on. Your failed experiment of mixing the plus sized items in with the juniors a few years ago did nothing to help. In fact, it made me homicidal to see a cute top in a size 2, only to discover the largest size you had in was a 16. It appeared to have that effect on a LOT of women, because that project didn't even last 4 months, did it?

I went in to your store hoping to spend a fair amount of money on some new jeans. What a shame that the same pair of jeans in 3 different sizes didn't fit. None of them were close enough to buy, even with your advertised 30-60% off sale. Oh, and one rack of t-shirts from the 70's marked 60% off isn't fooling anyone.  May I suggest a sign that says "These are crap, but they're cheap, so you know you'll buy some?"

I'm sure I'll run into simliar problems in other stores. But at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I'll never have to deal with YOU again.

Enraged, and decidedly not cordially yours,

The Amazonian Liongoddess 

Stand by for my next meltdown

3 officers from the Stupid Squad just paid us a visit. Why it took 3 of them to bring in the evidence is beyond me, but I just work here.


I asked Officer 1 what he was putting in. He launched into a convoluted story about how it was obtained from a traffic stop that led to a search warrant and some of it went with one report number and some went on something else, and......STOP THERE.

I told him to separate out whatever went on the first report number. All that went on it was 1 bag of weed. Fine. Do you have the report number? "Yes" *crickets chirp* Would you like to tell me what it is or should I attempt to pull it out of your skull via telepathy? He finally managed to give me a number which of course did not bring anything up. We can force it in when that happens, but the officer will have to tell us where they made the stop so we can enter it. I asked where he got it and he looked confused for a minute before responding, brightly, "Dispatch gave me the number!"

Cue my coworkers howling with laughter. No, dummy, where did you seize the evidence? "Ohhhhhh. It was 12 something Wit-something Rd." Well, let me just punch that in and see if it validates...NOT. One of the other stooges managed to come up with the actual address. Got that knocked out, and asked for the information to enter the rest of the stuff they'd dragged in.

"That goes on a separate report number." I understand that, and I'm ready for the next number. "It's a different number." I GET THAT, NOW GIVE ME THE NEXT NUMBER. "It's got a different suspect too."



I finally get the new number and new suspect from Officer 2. He is beginning to suspect that I'm slightly peeved. Got the case entered, but because they have grow equipment, and because there are generators that I can't lift with my bad back, I now have to take 2 of the 3 stooges down to the basement with me. 2 & 3 are elected to 'help' me.

Note- Officer 3 has been keeping quietly out of the way. He remembers the royal ass-chewing he got a few weeks ago when he called down here screaming that we made a mistake on something his partner (Officer 2, in fact) put in and wisely decided not to push his luck. (For the record, it turned out that we did not make a mistake and his Sgt made him apologize for being an ass) However, his luck ran out when we were ready to go downstairs. 2 & I are at the back of the cart. He is standing in front of the door. I said, "We're going out the door to the lobby elevator." He just stood there. I repeated myself. He continued to just stand there, blankly.

I had to squeeze between the cart and the door, push him out of the way and open the door. "Oh, you meant now?"



I warned my colleagues to call dispatch and report a double murder in the basement if I wasn't back upstairs in 10 minutes. I walked back into the office and they cheerfully announced I'd been gone for 4 minutes and 13 seconds. Yes, they actually timed it.

The final straw? There was a box of assorted paraphernalia among their evidence. It didn't need to go downstairs. I took it to the back and put it on a shelf slightly above my head...which is when I discovered that the Idiot Brigade hadn't dumped the water out of a bong before taping the box shut.



I smell just lovely now, so I won't be stopping at the grocery store on my way home. The last time this happened (and it happens at least twice a year, sadly) and I did that, I was followed around Kroger by a loudly sniffing member of store security.

I love my job. Really.

I hate everything and the insurance company is next...

A few years ago, I had to have half of my thyroid removed. The insurance company wouldn't allow the removal of the whole thing since the other half had mini growths and the ones on the section that WAS taken were 'only' pre-cancerous. I have had to have ultrasounds on what's left every six months since then. My last one was a three weeks ago and I got a call from my primary doctor's office saying that the largest growth had tripled in size since January and they were sending me to the throat doctor for consultation. I've spent the last 2 weeks worrying myself sick about this...and then this happened (copied from the email I sent one of my best friends):

I got to Dr M’s office and the first thing I had to do was fight with the snotty receptionist. She said I have a past due balance and if I wasn’t paying it today, they’d have to reschedule me. I told her that I had already skipped buying my meds this week to pay for this visit and taken time off work, so either I saw the doctor and they could get paid when I have the rest of the money, or she could explain it to my family lawyer if I died from lack of treatment and my parents sue her ass.







Then I get ushered into an exam room…and wait. And wait. And wait some more. Dr M finally comes bounding in and cheerfully says “So what brings you in today?” WTF? Did he really just ask me why I’m there? Turns out that the hospital didn’t send the ultrasound results over to him per Dr B’s request, so he didn’t know anything about it. I waited another 45 minutes for him to get the charts and look everything over.






The good news is that the girl at Dr B’s office missed reading a decimal point and the tumor hasn’t tripled in size, but it has grown by 1/3. (which to me is bad enough) Dr M said it could go either way- he could see if the insurance would sign off on the removal, but it would probably be safe to go another 6 months and check it again. This is when it all caught up with me and I started getting hysterical. I told him I’d spent the last 2 weeks worried sick, reminded him of the family history of thyroid cancer, and said I wasn’t doing this anymore. He freaked out when I lost it, so he called Humana to see what we’d have to do to get an authorization for the surgery.






This is the part I really love. The INSURANCE COMPANY gets to decide if I’m in enough danger to need surgery?!? They won’t approve it without a biopsy first, despite the family history and the fact that the tumors on the half that was already removed were in the early stages of cancer. So I go in Tuesday to have a needle punched into my throat. And then they’ll decide what we’re allowed to do next.






It’s not that I want to have surgery, but I want to be done with this. I’m sick of being sick, and I’m even sicker of worrying about all of it.