So I’m in New York, right

which is particularly good because New York City contains this shop called Lane Bryant. Lane Bryant is a chain that sells plus-sized clothes that:

(a) cater for women who are big and curvy, not thin-legged and pot bellied and if any buyers for Evans are reading this can you PLEASE take some notes? and

(b) also appreciate that tall people can be fat and actually do trousers that cover the whole of a tall fat person’s leg, Evans buyers this is another one for you particularly YES YOU, and

(c) vaguely resemble clothes that fashionable people might want to wear, but are made a bit bigger to enable fat people to be fashionable and fat and tall at the same time. WRITE THAT ONE DOWN TOO PLEASE EVANS BUYERS.

I went into Lane Bryant this afternoon, which would be one of your UK evenings, with my usual game plan in mind: place credit card on counter; buy anything I feel like; close eyes; sign bill; continue to make minimum payments on credit card without looking at balance. I justify this on the basis that being tall, fat and small waisted means that I rarely find anything to wear in the UK and therefore a couple of hundred dollars in the US is acceptable, particularly as George Bush is currently cocking up their economy considerably more than Gordon Brown has yet done with ours.

So. I head over to their jeans shelves, because their jeans have always been great: they cater for every sort of fat figure and every height. And I find that they have changed their sizing since I last went. They used to size their jeans on American sizing (i.e. their 14 is our 16-18). Now they have replaced that with a new system that goes from 1-8.

I know why they have done this. Some marketing genius has decided that Lane Bryant will score big points with the silent porkjority by affording them the opportunity, just once in their fat miserable lives, to be a size 2-10. Well, thanks, marketing genius, but don’t fucking patronise me. I am fat. Not stupid, and not blind. I know what clothes size I am because every single other shop in the country uses the same sizing system and the reason I’m in your shop is because most other shops don’t cater to it. I know I am big - that is why I am in your fat ladies’ shop in the first place, actually - and deciding you’re going to rechristen a size 18 a size 4 or whatever isn’t fooling me or anyone else.

What you have actually done is taken from me the thing I like most about fat ladies’ shops. And that’s the fact that they are the only clothes shops that I can go into, find clothes in my size, take them off the shelf and go and try them on in a changing room. You know? Like a normal person in a normal shop? Perhaps this is just me, but even at the best of times I hate being “helped” in clothes shops. I hate being fat and I hate shopping for clothes and I really don’t want anyone else to be involved. Not even other fat people and not even in a plus size shop. I just want to browse around, find some clothes I like, try them on, be pleased and buy them - which isn’t too hard if people will leave you the fuck alone to look around in peace - and then get the fuck out. But today I had no choice, because there was nothing that explained this weird new sizing regime.

So when the very thin woman came over to me and asked if I needed help with the jeans, I said I did.

“Is this new sizing system to distract me from the fact that I’m a big fatty fatster?” I joked, and she gasped.

“Oh honey,” she said reproachfully, wrapping a tape measure round my waist, “we don’t say ‘fat’ in this store, we say ‘plus sized’.”

She asked me my UK size and I told her and she handed me a pair of jeans. I went to the changing room to try them on and couldn’t get them past my thighs. I put my skirt back on, came out and said, “I need the next size up”, and this is where it all got a bit weird.

She turned around, stared at my hips and then said, “Oh my GOD.”

“What?” I asked.

“Oh WOW,” she said, shaking her head, “you really DO need the next size up. In fact I’d say two or three. Wow.” She shook her head again. “You really do have some hips, don’t you? I mean, look what you’re CARRYING there!”

“Um,” I said, really quite surprised.

“I mean, I didn’t realise how BIG your HIPS were because you were wearing a skirt -”

“You mean this one I’m still wearing?”

“- but you are seriously carrying one HELL OF A LOT OF WEIGHT BACK THERE.”

I’m just going to pause here and say that I am not making any part of this conversation up. I promise.

“Try these,” she said, handing me another pair of jeans.

I went back into the changing room, closed the door and looked at myself in the mirror. I know it probably sounds ridiculous, but I was really gutted. You see, I know I’m overweight and I know you aren’t supposed to say this even if you aren’t but generally speaking I think I look all right. I’m bigger than I should be, there’s no doubt about that, but I still basically like the way I look, and most of the time I sort of assume that other people do too, or at least that I don’t actually look revolting. But every now and again I look at myself in the mirror and hate me. When I looked at myself in the mirror this time, all I could see was acres and acres of fat Katy Newton. I spent the next five minutes trying not to cry. Then I tried on the new jeans, which went on very easily, so I bought them. And then I got the fuck out of there before I burst into tears properly or set someone on fire. But now that I’ve calmed down a bit, here’s how I feel:

1. Pah! Some saleswoman. She could have had $300 out of me but instead she was lucky to make $40.  I pity the fool!

2. What does she know anyway? This morning in Macy’s a man actually sprinted to catch up with me at the door to ask for my number, AND he was okay-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable. (I said no. Hey, he could have been anybody.)

3. I needed it. Well, I didn’t need it, actually, and she should have minded her own fucking business and stuck to handing me jeans. But it’s certainly filled me with resolve.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she did me a favour. She was a fucking bitch whether she meant to be or not. Everyone knows you do not say stuff like that, especially when you work in a shop that’s supposed to provide a supportive atmosphere for women who are made to feel like shit in other shops. Yes? But what I mean is this: ideally I’d obviously like people to KEEP THEIR COCKING MOUTHS SHUT and REMEMBER THEIR COCKING MANNERS. Of course. But apparently people will insist on being cunts. And since you can’t even rely on people who work in fucking plus-size shops to be polite to the fuller-figured, I suppose I’ll have to go for option B, which is simply this:

STOP BEING SO FUCKING FAT.

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And now for The Kicker:

I was in such a rush to get out that I didn’t notice, but these jeans are miles too big for me.

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