Where Have All The Sleeves Gone?

I made the mistake of going shopping for bigger jeans this weekend and maybe a cute “going out” shirt and I realized…someone is holding all the sleeves for ransom. Even the sweaters they make have short sleeves. For those of us not having hot flashes every 10 minutes, I’d like a winter sleeve to cover my flappy arms. Bad enough I go all summer with my arms on display. The only thing I look forward to in winter is having all my bits covered. I’ve noticed my daughter and her friends wear t-shirts all winter and are too cool for a coat. I sit next to a space heater all day bundled up like a Sherpa. So then it reminds me of this story I wrote just this summer. I was complaining about how sleeves don’t seem to fit anymore and are completely out of proportion. Did someone hear my cry and out of contempt, decided to take all sleeves away?

Bat Wings:
The excess meatiness that now dangles from your upper arms in place of the youthful muscular system that used to reside there.

After numerous conversations lately I have decided I am not the only woman obsessed with the lack of options clothing manufacturers are giving us these days. I mean what are they thinking when they make some of these atrocities? Back in the day, if you knew your shirt size you could rest assured the shirt would actually fit. Now, you have to try everything on in the store and chant “please fit” over and over again. Because let me just tell you…shirts are built with Inhuman arm sizes. I can only smash my bat wings into a maximum of 50% of the shirts I try on. So either my arms are abnormally meaty or the arms on shirts are being built for the aliens on Close Encounters. Judging by multiple conversations with women, I’m guessing it’s the latter. If you are lucky enough to be one of those ladies who have a waistline no matter what size you are, invest in a tailor. Because even if it required two people and a pulley system to hoist your jeans over your hips, you will inevitably have enough excess jean in the back of your waistband to produce a whole new set of jeans. It’s futile to buy anything off the rack without first trying it on because it’s just as depressing to try it on at home and drive back to return it than it is to just try it on in the store and see your behind in 42 different angles under a lighting system that ages you 20 years. Looking at this from a purely marketing perspective, wouldn’t a retailer want you to look fabulous in the dressing room? Not torment you and run you off sobbing uncontrollably?
To me, the perfect size is an 8. Sure, some of you may feel 4 or 6 is a better goal…or why not a 10? However, for me and my structure, it’s an 8. For an extremely short period of history I was a size 6, but that was an anomaly. Size 8 is much more attainable and I’ve been an 8 many times, but sustaining a holding pattern around size 8 is next to impossible. I hover around it for a few months and then soon size 12’s are cutting me in half.
I really do want to stop the pattern of yo-yo dieting and weight gain-weight loss and establish some consistency and most of the time I can even do the healthy eating portion of the fitness program. But the exercise is where I fail. I get motivated and swear THIS is the time I stick to it. I buy the Wii Fit and the first time it insults me I haul out a sledgehammer. I buy the Wii Active and after I lumber around next to my teenager like a mammoth it goes in the closet. I got a free treadmill…guess the last time I used that? I jogged around my neighborhood but the first judgmental stare I received I jogged right into hiding. I did water aerobics for a few months but it got cold outside and I wussed out. I’m lugging around a Coldstone Creamery monkey on my back and I’m looking for some middle ground. Healthy food that doesn’t taste like a box of ground up tissues and a form of movement that doesn’t humiliate, injure, empty my savings or take up all my free time. My sloth-like existence has to end, but where does one start during Dairy Queen season and a recession?
I implore someone with any sort of fashion sense to start up a clothing line…real clothes for real women. I want bigger armholes, I would like my coin slot covered and if the zipper is less than 4 inches…forget about it and I’m begging you please would you quit making spaghetti strapped tops for women with B cups or larger? The “built-in bra” you all tout is as useless as nutritional facts on my ice cream bar. You can call your line: Well-Rounded Wear, or Ample Apparel, or perhaps Busty Duds!
One last note…a tan does not, in fact, camouflage cellulite like some dimwit on the TV said it would. Now…who’s up for some sweet cream goodness?