A long time ago, I used to really like to wear baggy clothing. Partially because I was a lot tubbier than I am these days, and partially because I simply liked to wear really baggy clothing. However, back in those days, finding shirts that were XXL or larger was almost unheard of, and I would scoff at the legions of large or smaller sized shirts, mostly because they were not my preference. Subsequently, XXL+ were much rarer, and if you could find the larger sizes, also cost a little extra, which I was willing to pay, for the sake of my “fashion.” Fortunately for me, such habits have changed over the last decade or so, and my preferred shirt size is appropriately just large.
On a recent trip to Virginia, I wanted to pick up an ACC Champion Virginia Tech t-shirt, and no better place to look for one than in Virginia itself. It’s a fairly basic shirt, with nothing too fancy, and I learned that Dick’s Sporting Goods stores don’t really prefer to sell basic stuff, opting for the over-designed, and name-branded clothing manufacturers, that they can charge $20+ for, as opposed to the basic and simple things sold much cheaper in Blacksburg itself. Or, a Wal-Mart, which could actually be relied upon to sell some more basic wares, and I was delighted to find a wide variety of shirts, coats, as well as other logo-branded items. At first, it was a little overwhelming, with all the things they had to sell, but when I dove into the racks to actually start looking for stuff for me, that elation began to turn into frustration. Eventually, it turned into disdain and disgust.
Y’see, despite the wide variety of basic, inexpensive designs that Wal-Mart had available, I was duped into thinking that their stocks were just fine, since there were still literal stacks of every single available option, still on the shelves. But upon further examination revealed that in 95% of those cases, the only available sizes left were XXL, 3XL, and flabbergasting 4XL. With the exception of the two large-sized shirts that I ended up buying, everything else was of the gigantic fat-fuck size variety. And unfortunately, the ACC Champion shirts were all in the same boat, too. Apparently, Wal-Mart seems to have over-estimated their interpretation of just how many morbidly obese people would be in the market for school-branded apparel, and short-changed those of whom were looking for more logical sizing.
What this says about the clientele of Wal-Mart, or the state of society in which we live in today is certainly something, but in the end, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s all a little sad and pathetic. I want to believe that if fat-fuck sized clothing were harder to acquire for some of these blobs, then maybe it would motivate them to do something about their affliction. Not accommodate, or cater to.
