Dear Vanity Sizing,
Stop it. Please. Just stop it.
It’s rare enough that I even look at what I put on my body in the morning. Rarer still that I recognize that I’ve had that same pilled sweater since 2004. And you’re more likely to see a unicorn than you are to see me arriving at a store to torture myself go shopping. Why are you heaven-bent on making this process even more difficult for me?
It’s not that I hate my body, I just hate clothes. Why does everything look like it was built for a 4-year-old stripper? When did all tops become clear and cut down to the bellybutton? When did it become impossible to distinguish shirts from dresses? Why does everything come in a legging? Who are these no-waisted, no-thighed, breastless pregnant bone people that all clothes seem to be cut for? What did I ever do to you Urban Outfitters? I live in the urban! I like outfits! Why do the only clothes that seem to fit me come from Chicos? Why has the fashion industry turned me from a hip, cool, totally with it, savvy woman about town into a dowager?
This is unhelpful
The only thing worse that sobbing in a Forever 21 changing room is sobbing because you have lied to me, vanity sizing. No one likes to be told they’re being lied to while they’re naked and in a small room.
I should be able to pick up a size 8–for that is what I am–and have it be a size 8, not a circus tent. I mean, I could tattoo “millionairess” on my forehead, but the fine folks at the diamond and Bali vacation store will not be happy when it comes time to run my credit card. You don’t make me feel better when you put me in a size 2, you make me feel exhaustion and rage.
This is not what a ladies’ medium looks like.
I don’t shop at the kinds of stores where skinny attendants wait outside and bring you new sizes whenever you want. If I’m standing in front of that full length mirror and you aren’t the right size, it’ll take me half an hour to schlep across the acre of Burlington between the changing room and the Damas section. So stop screwing with me!
I’m going to get dressed now. I do have this a skirt from 2002 in there that has always been honest with me.
****
The Oreo Experience 
You’re a size 8?
Yup.
Did you consider taking a break at a nudist resort? That used to be very Oreo and you won’t have to deal with clothes there.
Hmmm. As long as cell phones aren’t allowed, that might actually be really interesting. Would be terrified that I’d get caught in someone’s family vacay pics