My New JacketA Moral in the Mirror

Here is the new jacket that arrived in the mail on Friday. As you can see from the catalog picture (Making It Big, if you should wonder [makingitbig.com]), it is reversible. It is lovely! I am wearing it everywhere I go and feeling very snazzy indeed. If I lived further north, it would be an autumn jacket, but here in Juneau, it is a winter jacket. On really cold days, one of which we had Monday (14 degrees), I wear it over a sweater and I'm warm as toast. On other days, a cotton blouse will be good enough.

I love this catalog because it shows models my size. This one is smaller than I am, but she is the smallest one in the catalog. One of the sad things about catalog shopping, if you are large, is that mostly they show clothes that don't come in a size smaller than a 14 on a size 8 model. Even if you are a 14, that doesn't tell you how you are going to look. If, like me, you are substantially larger than a 14, it is brutal. I look at the garment and I know it won't look like that on me, but somewhere in my subconscious that is the image which is saved and counted on. Then, I try the thing on, it fits, it looks great, I look fine -- but when I look in the mirror, I compare the rotund, short, 64-year-old Granny with the lean, tall, 19-year-old model that I saved back there and feel dreadful disappointment. But, when I buy from Making It Big, when I look in the mirror, what I see is what I expect to see. I feel good about my new clothes. I feel attractive. I like seeing me.

To me, this catalog personifies truth in advertising. It speaks of the value of being who you really are, of not pretending to be anything else. I have never been disappointed with a garment from these people (who sell only clothes made in the US) in all the years I've been a customer. Because they tell me, right up front, the truth. They don't use skinny models.

I wish that other people, politicians among them, were as honest as these people. Wouldn't it be nice?