Old Coot advice to young husbands \u2013 \u201cDon\u2019t ever buy clothes for your wife!\u201d Men don\u2019t know anything about women\u2019s clothes. When your wife holds up a dress in a store and says, \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d You mumble, \u201cLooks OK to me.\u201d Old coots know better. We sidestep the question. We\u2019ve learned the hard way and say, \u201cI really can\u2019t tell unless you put on the shoes and the jewelry you\u2019ll wear with it and then model it in normal light, not the fluorescents they have here in the store.\u201d That gets us off the hook. The thing is, we don\u2019t pay attention to clothes. People walk past and what they are wearing doesn\u2019t register. We notice they are short or tall, skinny or fat, old or young, but not how they are dressed. The \u201cfashion\u201d section of our brain is clogged with useless sports trivia. <\/p>\n
Women, on the other hand, know exactly what someone is wearing. The police have figured this out. When they interview witnesses to a crime they separate the men from the women. The men are a reliable source for quirky walking styles, height, scars, tattoos and weight. Women can provide information on the perp\u2019s clothes. \u201cShe had on a blue pinstripe dress with an off-white collar. The eight buttons up the front were bone. It was a combination silk rayon material, probably size 8. Her earrings didn\u2019t match the dress; they were gold; they should have been silver or green. Her shoes were Jimmy Choo\u2019s, tan with an embellished ankle strap and open toes. They cost $385.<\/p>\n
Wise men, old men, have learned not to buy clothes for their wives. Even if we did know what they liked, we would never pick the correct size. We know men\u2019s sizes. They are all about bigness; small and medium start the scale, but men don\u2019t buy them. Those sizes are for teens. We pick a size by how macho it sounds. The manufacturers have figured this out. What used to be large is now called XXL. Translated, this means – big, strong, tough guy. Pants are simple; they go by waist and length. Men can relate to that. It\u2019s something we can see on a tape measure. Except, it\u2019s a big lie. For example, a size 36 waist used to be 36 inches around. Now it\u2019s somewhere between 37 and 41 inches. Our butts and guts have expanded and so have the cut of manufactured clothing. Manufacturers are wise to that too. We get to brag, \u201cI wore a 36 waist in high school and I still do. (Oh yea, how can that be; you weighed 170 then and are pushing past 230 now?) <\/p>\n
Women\u2019s sizes are trickier. Things are made to sound small: petite, extra petite, small, small-medium, medium, medium plus and plus. Nothing too controversial! Dress sizes are even better at disguising things. They start at size double zero. Size ten is acceptable. It has a good ring to it \u2013 makes you think you are a \u201cten\u201d when you wear a ten. Doesn\u2019t sound big at all. Nothing like a men\u2019s size 36. Size 20 is quoted a lot in the \u201cDiet\u201d ads. \u201cI was a size twenty before taking Doctor Slimfast\u2019s pills. Now, I\u2019m down to a size 14 and still losing. Like men\u2019s clothes, the sizes have been altered to accommodate our expanding waistlines. What was a size 14 in 1950, is now called a size eight. <\/p>\n
Shoes are yet another issue. I swear women\u2019s shoes don\u2019t come in sizes. All shoes are size seven. In the back room, the boxes indicate otherwise, but no shoe salesman is dumb enough to tell a woman that her foot fits perfectly into a size eleven. He measures, goes to the back and brings out a pair to try on. If she decides to buy them, he glues a size #7 sticker on the box and sends her to the cashier. Shoes bought in these high-end stores cost forty dollars extra. No one complains. <\/p>\n
Men are just the opposite. They brag about big feet. \u201cMy son wears size fourteen,\u201d they say. \u201cHe\u2019s only eleven years old. Chip off the old block.\u201d I guess it\u2019s because we are always sticking our feet in our mouths. Bigger feet are harder to get in. Although, my size eleven fits in just fine. I manage to insert it most every day. <\/p>\n
I probably did it again, at least once, in this article. <\/p>\n