Odd Numbers

This mystery of the odd numbers may not affect women as I have no knowledge and only a little experience in buying women’s clothes. I never shop for women’s clothes and only take a short-cut through lingerie to the fishing tackle once in a while. Other than that one time I tried to purchase a dress for a Halloween costume party. Just because I was trying on dresses in early September when the summer stock was on sale was no reason for the clerk to call security. At least the big fellow who escorted me from the Shoppe was kind enough to suggest another store down the street where ‘my kind of people’ were known to shop. Last week I decided I needed a new pair of jeans and once more I ran into the odd number problem.

This is not a new problem; in fact, I have faced it since I became aware that I did not fit my older brother’s hand-me-down clothes. That was about the time I noticed that girls were different from boys. Throughout the following years I have passed through several even-number phases, but I seem to be one of the people who is stuck with odd numbers. This cannot be a problem I suffer alone. Right now I am at the 41 number but for years I struggled with 43.

Over the years my girth has crept up from what I briefly remember as the summer of ’62 when I wore a size 32 inch waist to where I have comfortably settled now at 41. Doc says I should be down to a 39 but I figure, what is the use? They do not make waist size 39 pants either. What is it with the fashion, or in my case, garment, industry that they make waist sizes for men in only even numbers? They have conceded that our legs come in even and odd numbers, why do they think our waists have to be only even numbers?

It is not just the jeans that I have problems with. For years I bought size 44 tall in off-the-rack suits but since they have out-sourced all the needle work to China, I now wear what they call a 46 almost tall suit. What I needed was a size 45, but no, the tailor would have to make some adjustments, free of charge. Somehow, these altered suits just never felt as good as the ones that I wore for the two years that I progressed from a size 43 chest to a 45.

Women may be able to purchase the sizes that fit, but in any event, they, or one of their friends, can take it in or let it out with the flash of a needle or the hum of a machine. Agreed, I could have taken all my misfits to a tailor or bought a tailor-made fitted suit. But I somehow always felt a little uncomfortable with a guy named Bruce having to twice measure my inseam. I know the saying, measure twice and cut once, but somehow . . .

I am certainly not going to take my Wrangler jeans to a tailor to have the waist adjusted. As for the legs not fitting, I can either wear them with the cuffs dragging and shredding, as seems to be the fashion with younger folk, or I can hitch them up and wear them ‘high-water’ style like so many of the men my aged group seem to favour. I tried the old hot-water washing trick once, hoping that the waist size would shrink down one number but all that happened was the cuffs crawling up my calves to the point where my wife had to turn my new jeans into Bermuda shorts.

Shirts used to be a problem because while the 16 ½ size neck was comfortable enough, the length on the sleeves that came with that size made a dress shirt look like it was short-sleeve months in North Bay all winter long. All one had to do purchase a fine dress shirt was to go to a good Haberdashery Shoppe and get the sleeve length you desired. The discount stores only carried a 33 inch sleeve, somehow for once using an odd number. I think the formula was sleeve length is twice neck size but where they came up with that idea, heaven only knows.

We have Big and Tall shops in some of our malls, but I am waiting for some marketing genius to open an Odd Number Shoppe. The odds are that half the older men in town would shop there. The other half will continue to wear pants that are either too tight causing the beer tummy to overhang, or too loose and held up by both a belt and suspenders.