Not Everybody Is An XL

We may be the X-Curmudgeon, but we're not an XL, as in extra large. Indeed, we're a "medium," a term that, sadly, has lost it's meaning.

Medium is supposed to mean "middle." When we were young, fries and drinks came in small, medium and large. Now, they come in "medium"--which is really large, large (really, extra large) and "super-size" (which means "I'm deliberately killing myself young").

But here we're talking about clothing sizes. There again, you can hardly find anything that is "small," and "medium" isn't too easy to find either. There are plenty of XL's and even XXL's, however.

Oftentimes we receive "free" shirts, either T-shirts or polo shirts. Of course, they're not free, because we either paid for some service to get it (like a seminar), or we made a donation to some organization, presumably without regard to getting something back. They're also not free because they advertise their sponsor. Invariably, the "free" shirt we get is an XL, meaning we're getting a shirt that we paid for (indirectly) that doesn't fit.

Well, we're certain that administratively it makes sense to just give everyone one size of shirt. And smaller people can always wear an oversized shirt, whereas someone who is truly an XL simply can't put on an M shirt. Still, what's the point of giving away something that's not going to fit most people?

Frankly, we'd just as soon not get the "free" shirt and instead either (1) pay less, or (2) have our charitable contribution, or campaign contribution or whatever go fully to whatever we contributed it to rather than getting back an overlarge piece of clothing that will find its way to the back of the closet.

Here's an idea: maybe those charities that collect used clothing--where all our unused XL shirts wind up eventually (after we realize we're never going to wear them)--should give out free XL shirts to their contributors. That would make for a nice, tight circle.

Anyway, we suppose there is one other solution: keep eating those "medium" fries and cokes, and pretty soon all those XL shirts will fit just fine.