Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994                   TAG: 9404270062
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHO GOT MY SIZE?

It's true that it is, well, large, but it's hard to think of being extra-large when you're ordering a pair of knit shorts from a pleasant young woman in a distant state.

Incidentally, ordering things on the phone is all one-way. Do you get a chance to ask the young woman what size shorts she wears? No. That would not only be indiscreet, it could get you busted for interstate vice or something.

"Yes," the young woman says sweetly. "Those are the $16.50 knit shorts, and you want them in heather gray, extra-large."

I know these people are professionals, but I come from a long line of paranoids, and I imagine the young woman taking off her headset and saying to her co-workers:

"Wow! Extra large in heather gray. Is this guy going to make a statement or what? You reckon we ought to alert the authorities in Roanoke, Virginia, that this guy is going to be out there?"

And then when I look in the mirror I see this old guy with dimensions like William Howard Taft or Oliver Hardy.

This is nothing new. Once, I was discussing a river driver's shirt with a young man, and I could tell that when we got around to size he could barely hide his contempt.

I imagined him sitting there in his lightly starched khakis and blue button-down shirt - a neat 145 pounds, 30-inch waist, 14-inch neck - and against all reason I hated him.

And I knew that when I hung up, he would turn to his colleagues and say:

"Whoa! How'd you like to see that old dude in an extra-large driver's shirt? He'll look like a walking barrage balloon."

I've got feelings, you know. I've never tried to order a river driver's shirt since.

And I know deep in my heart that they don't make a rugby shirt that would fit me - which probably is a good thing since there is a possibility I would look pregnant in it.

One day, I got so crazy I almost called one of those 800 numbers and ordered a pair of trail shorts in medium size. I didn't, because I knew the young woman who took the order would say after I hung up:

"Medium, huh? Listen, I know an extra large when I hear one. Some guys just never face the facts."

In the interest of public decorum, I now pledge to you that I won't wear my heather-gray, extra-large knit shorts to the liquor store.