Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 12, 1994 TAG: 9412140011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Indeed, her shoes did fit my sister and me. By the time we were 8 or 9 years old, our feet were as big as Lynne's mother's.
Decked out in high heels, hats and grown-up-lady dresses, we paraded around Lynne's basement, or around Mama's living room. Goodness knows what all we imagined doing. Making a trip to Miller and Rhoads for lunch in the Tea Room, probably. That's what ladies did then.
Mama has a picture of the three of us, all in our finery, sitting together on the lowest of her living room steps. We're pretty cute: three little ladies-in-waiting.
A few years ago, on a New Year's Eve, Mama corralled us three to take another picture on her living room step. We're still pretty cute. But we needed a couple of steps to sit on, and we no longer fit side by side.
One of my nephews has very particular tastes. Since the day he was born, he's been fastidious. Even when he was a toddler, he'd insist on changing his shirt if you happened to dampen its cuffs while helping him wash his hands.
It's no surprise that he's developed a delicate palate. Once, to entice him to eat more, Mama hit upon the idea of making him ``little'' food. So that evening, when she made salmon patties, she cut down a half dozen of them to the size of a quarter. Bite-sized. Hors d'oeuvre-sized. Nephew-sized.
He ate them all. And asked for more.
Now she makes ``little'' food whenever the grandchildren arrive. Cups of Jell-O. Tiny biscuits. Hamburgers that an adult could chomp in one bit.
The children love their child-sized food. Just as my sister and I used to love our child-sized ``lady'' clothes.
Do you suppose anyone actually wears that one-size-that-fits-all? Certainly, that size-that-isn't-a-size doesn't often fit me.
Neither do S, M and L. Last year, I switched over to XL exclusively. And that worked pretty well for a while. But this year I've switched again, to 2XL or, better yet, 3XL if I can find it, because that's so loose the fit doesn't even matter.
Ever since Henry Ford popularized assembly lines and interchangeable parts, we've lived in an alien world: a world built to ``average'' size, in which no ``average'' people live.
Oh, some folks have an easier time of it than others. I can, after all, usually buy clothes off the rack.
But I know people who've never bought a stitch of ready-made clothing that fits in their lives.
I know people for whom your standard light switch is too high, and a few for whom your standard light switch is too low. I know people who bang their heads on every door frame they pass under, and people who can't see over their steering wheels.
A hum of discomfort wheezes around us all, because so little in our lives fits any of us just right. Think. If you have one thing that fits you, you know of it. I have a pen. Exactly the right length and weight, precisely the right diameter for my hand. But that's about it. The only thing that really fits me.
The rest of the time, I, like you, am squeezing and reaching, craning and cramping, adjusting, trimming, letting out, tucking in. And wondering, a little pathetically, ``What is wrong with me?''
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB