Coat tales

Before I lost weight, I would "joke" that I had to be the biggest person in Canada.

I couldn't find a single, solitary thing to wear in stores. Everyone - and I mean everyone - around was smaller than me; indeed, most people were a healthy, normal weight, but even those who were obese weren't as big as I was. The difference in the appearance of the population between my hometown in south-central Ohio and here was jarring to me, especially at first. Most of the time, I felt like a freak. I hadn't felt that to the same degree at home because there were a lot of people around who looked like me. Unfortunately.

When I arrived here 10 years ago, I complained that sizes in Walmart only went to 3X in clothes and size 10 in shoes. Plus-size specialty stores had sizes up to 4X. Seriously...what the hell was I going to do? My mother-in-law made a lot of my clothes and I did a lot of stocking up on trips home. That's how I avoided scaring folks by walking around naked.

My favorite line was "There are no fat people in Canada!" None like me, anyway!

Since losing weight, I have given away an entire wardrobe of clothes. I sold very little, preferring to give most of it to thrift stores and charities. However, I had some really nice coats that I couldn't see giving away. I mean, a size 4X leather trench coat and a never-worn size 6X parka....there has to be a market for that, right? Someone, somewhere would buy them. So I put them a lot of other offerings on our local Kijiji and figured I'd be rid of them within a few days. If I'd seen this stuff listed pre-op, I would've been jumping for joy, I reasoned. There has to be someone who is having a hard time finding a coat who will be really pleased to take one off my hands.

WRONG.

I first listed them last fall and got lots of responses right away so I was optimistic. But I quickly learned people don't understand the concept of these sizes. I had women show up to try on a size 5X jacket or coat who were clearly much smaller than that. As soon as some of them walked in, I knew. "What the hell are people thinking?" I would ask Erich. "You can't wear a 5X if you're clearly a 2 or 3X!" Every time someone came by, the coats were too big for them. Always.

I sold two out of 16 items.

After briefly considering giving them all away, I decided to keep four of the nicer, more expensive ones and gave the rest away because well, one of my old coats takes up the room of three or four in my new size. I needed the space. So this past fall, I re-listed the four. No hits. Not a single one!

Finally, this past weekend, someone emailed about the size 6X parka. Dude drove about 45 minutes to come try it on. He really wanted it. I handed it to him and his first words are "Whoa! It's big!" Well....yeah, it's a 6X. It's big. WTF? He tried it on. Too big.

Sigh.

After being told what I weighed pre-op, I've had people (here, in Ontario) say to me that they never would've thought I weighed that much. Maybe 250 pounds or something. That, to them, is the highest they can imagine someone weighing. By that I mean that they don't have a concept of what 450 pounds looks like so they can't imagine anyone weighing that much. I guess when you weigh 120 pounds, 250 seems enormous. So maybe that's what's going on with the coats, but in reverse. These people have no concept of a size 6X (because it doesn't exist much up here) but they know they're big; so they show up thinking they'll be able to wear it but can't. It's weird.

So now I don't know what the hell to do with these beautiful, wonderful coats. I know someone would love to have them but those people are certainly not in my area. I don't want to mess around with shipping so e-bay is out. Maybe I'll hang onto them till I go home and have my parents put them up for sale there.

Hm. Maybe I was right all along and I really WAS the biggest person in Canada! I'm kidding. I know I wasn't but I find this misconception of obesity and size by people around me strangely fascinating because I know there wouldn't be this issue in my area of Ohio.

If you know any plus or super plus-size people who need a winter coat, send them my way!