All about the sizes

When I was in London the last time, I had to buy a couple of work out clothes because I hadn’t gone prepared for a week of gym.  So I go to Primark, because I was told that is where I will get my gym wear at a cheaper price (I have to convert it to Indian Rupee, remember). What I did not expect was the size differences. I know of it. But I never had been clothes shopping anywhere else. So I had no idea that I would be in so much trouble. In India, the sizes are XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL etc. I usually go for L because I don’t like exact fit clothes. I like my clothes a little looser. But over there, when I went to the T Shirt section in Primark, I was perplexed because there was a size 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 etc. How the hell am I supposed to know this kind of size now. I tried asking a sales girl over there and she said ‘Google is your friend’. Honestly that is what she told me. So I asked my friend to google it ( that did rhyme, did it not?) and found that I may or may not be size 12 or 14. I am not a big fan of trying out clothes. Standing in the queue to the fitting rooms and trying them out and retrying…naah. When I am with my friends, they do force me to do that so that I wont regret it. But when I am going shopping on my own, I just pick it and bill it. Since I always pick the bigger size I know for sure it will fit me 😉 Very simple logic. So imagine my horror when I had no other choice than to try the fitting. After some mumbling I take a couple of them in different sizes and go in search of the fitting rooms. To my horror, there was a queue bigger than the billing section. What did I do? I tried the size 14 on top of the tops I was wearing and it looked like it fit even with the 2/3 layers of clothes I was wearing. So logically it wouldn’t be too tight if I wore it on its own. And having decided that size 14 is the size for my T Shirt I went to the billing section to stand in that smaller queue.

I have also had some disastrous purchases when I have done my purchasing online. I still have that one shirt which is marked L but is fit for my first niece (in a couple of years). I have no idea how that shirt can be marked as L. There is always a huge risk when we buy clothes. I am not sure about Men’s sizes and if they have the same problem. But I have heard other women facing the same kind of issues. I am in awe of people who purchase perfectly fitting clothes and shoes online. Hats off to you people.

Why this rant all of a sudden? Because of this video on Vox’s YouTube channel which explains the same confusion as mine and also explains how the sizes get changed over ages and brands. No wonder I am always confused.

This problem isn’t just with the clothes. I am currently going through some tough times with regards to ring sizes. Why wont people have some universal standards with regards to all these things. As if there isn’t already enough to do that conversion formula/table.

K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge: Quest of Fire

Love is a burnin’ thing

Place: Chikmagalur

And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire

Place: Munnar

I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire

Place: Bali 

Wanna join in? Here is how:

Create a post with ‘K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge’ in the title. You can choose any depiction of a ‘quest for fire’ you come up with as your answer to the challenge, pingback to either Dale’s or K’lee’s post, and don’t forget to add the tag #CosPhoChal to your post’s tags and you’re done!

Mood ring

In Fort Bragg, I was upset that the Skunk Train that runs from Fort Bragg was cancelled because of maintenance work. So I went to the shop and got a mood ring (among other things for my nieces) for self. It came with a color chart which tells you which color indicates what mood. It was fun to see the changes in the color. I generally don’t buy any ornaments because I hardly wear them, but I wanted this one, just for fun.

As soon as I wore it for a few mins, it started to change color. Cool isn’t 😉

SoCS: My forever Ring

In our custom, we did not have any concept of exchanging rings earlier. They do that nowadays during engagement, which I think is more about gaining an object of Gold 😉 rather than signify anything else (because most people don’t wear it). We, only women actually, do have the custom of wearing a toe ring to indicate that we are married (since I am talking about rings here, I am leaving the other objects that signify that women are married). The reason I started this….oh yeah, the object of the post. A copper ring that I own.

I have been wearing a copper ring in my left ring finger forever, at least as far as I can remember back that is. I got it initially from my Grandmother. She was a widow who was supposed to live life like a Sanyasin, with head shaved and covered and all that, along with wearing only copper based things if she wants to and she owned one copper ring for herself. I don’t remember when or why she gave me one. But since then I am in love with anything copper. I wear a copper bracelet too. The ring gets very thin over a period of time and I get a new one to replace it. I tried replacing it with the one I have in Gold, but somehow it didn’t feel right. It can also be due to the fact that I don’t like Gold that much. So back came the copper ring. Sometime last year when I got a bonus, I bought a platinum ring for myself,which I wanted for a very long time and started wearing it on my right ring finger. My mom panicked and was like, “you can’t wear it there, wear it in your left hand”. I told her that I can’t replace my copper ring with a platinum ring. She was sort of enraged 🙂 with my obsession to that ring. Then I realized that a ring on my right hand might signify being married and she was trying to get me to agree to re-marry (an idea to which I am totally opposed to right now) and she didn’t want to send wrong signals. Moms!!!! So in went the platinum ring to the locker and here I am happy and content with my copper ring on my left hand ring finger, engaged forever to it 🙂 .

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This post is written in response to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt by Linda. And today’s prompt is:

This week your prompt will be “object.” Choose an object, or write about something you object to. Nouns and verbs don’t matter here at Stream of Consciousness Saturday. If you do go with the noun, try to include a picture.

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