I don’t know that there’s a single article of clothing that I don’t have to compromise on. I think every part of me doesn’t fit into the clothes on the rack. I don’t really fit into anything. And often for different reasons.

The biggest thing against me is my height. Particularly that I’m long in the torso. That makes it so I have a lot of difficulty finding shirts that fit. sometimes I have to wear XXL just so that I can tuck my shirts in comfortably. It’s an inconvenience beyond clothes, though. I have to seek out tall cars so that I don’t have to slouch in. While my wife is big on making sure that she has enough leg room, my legs (a little longer than hers) have gotten used to being folded up.

My legs, of course, are a different matter. They’re thick. Really thick. Even when I was thin, they were thick. so I have to get relaxed-fit jeans just so that I can get jeans that fit. I don’t know that they make jeans relaxed enough to relax on my legs. Then there’s the size of pants I wear, which some markets entirely exclude. I don’t know why. They have pants taller and wider in the waist than I am, but the taller ones are invariably slimmer and the wider ones are shorter. I want to throttle whoever the accountant is that figures out what sizes sell well because they leave me out in the cold. I’m not the only one. My friends Tony and Kelvin wear the same size. Both, incidentally, are taller than I am. I never asked them where they got their shirts, though we talk about shoes regularly.

Ahhh, shoes. My damnable size-15 feet. Thank goodness for Zappos. Clancy and I just ordered some shoes from there, which is what actually inspired this post.

Socks are also an issue. They don’t make socks above size-15. At least they don’t make them nearly as available as they make size-15 shoes, which themselves are usually unavailable. I guess they figure that with socks a size-15 guy can get away with size-13 (or 10-13, actually) socks. I guess we can. Except for a couple things. First, I like calf-socks. Goes back to when I was young. Calf-socks themselves are tough to find. Size 13 calf socks do not make it to my calfs. Add that to the pants I wear that are often too short for me and you end up with bare leg showing. A bane of my existence.

The last thing I guess is hats. I have to special order them. Size 8. They don’t even make college caps my size, as far as I have been able to see. When I played football in junior high, my head was far too big for the biggest helmet. Do you know how painful it is to wear a football helmet that’s too small? Do you know the headaches that quite literally come with that? My coach was sympathetic and took me to the equipment room to see if there was anything my size. Glory be, we found a helmet! Only to find out that it fit because the front pad was missing. If we have a kid that has my head and plays football, I am totally going to buy his helment. My wife, meanwhile, is preparing for a C-section if we have any sons.