What’s the Word: Size really does matter after all
Americans are obsessed with size. Problem is, we don’t seem to know exactly what size we want. It seems whatever size something is right now, we would really rather it be some other size.
Take the bed for instance. For centuries people got by with basically two sizes, single and double. You have to admit that was a pretty logical system. A single bed held one person, and a double was made for two. Simple. But were we satisfied with that? Oh no, not by a long shot. Now, not only do we have the good old standbys single and double, but, BAM!, we took it up a notch to queen, and then to king.
Where is this going to end? I mean, it would seem that you need a bigger bed so you can get more people in it, but that’s not the case. Seems the queen and king size are still designed for two people, though anybody with a couple of kids would probably argue this point. At any rate, the bigger bed is supposed to give a little more space to the usual two folks who decide to share it. But somehow this seems to defeat the original purpose of a double bed doesn’t it? Seems the more well-to-do we get, the more we want to get away from our significant others. Go figure.
And being a single male, I have another bone to pick with this system. When I moved into my first apartment my mom was nice enough to give me a bed. She gave me some sheets too, but after a couple months, they seemed to be getting kind of, um, dingy. So it occurred to me I might need to wash them. But the aggravating thing was, if I didn’t want to sleep on a bare mattress, I had to wash them the same day I took them off. That put a pretty severe kink into my natural inclination to put things off.
But then I got a brainstorm. I would just buy another set of sheets. Brilliant! Then when one set got, um, dingy, then I could put on the other set and procrastinate to my heart’s content. Ahh, but here’s the rub. When I went down to my local JCPenney and told the clerk I wanted some sheets, the first thing out of her mouth was:
“What size? Single, double, queen or king?”
And the first word out of my mouth, if you can call it a word, was:
“Um…” followed by the inevitable, “I’m not sure. How can you tell?”
With the resigned expression that seems to be universal with any woman who has tried to deal with a male who wants to buy sheets, and doesn’t happen to be an interior decorator, the clerk said, “Maybe you should just buy one of each and bring back the ones that don’t fit.”
Well, gee. Why didn’t I think of that? Anyway, it seems to me if we had just stayed with the old system we could have saved everyone, well, guys anyway, a lot of trouble.
This obsession with size seems to have permeated every aspect of society. Who can forget the ’80s and the advent of “big hair.” Women, and I hate to admit it, men too, wandered around with hair styles that made them look like they had some kind of ersatz Pomeranian pooch perched on their heads. And it’s not like it was the first time. Recall the pompadour and the bouffant? We seem to get this stuff in cycles.
And cars aren’t immune either. As gas prices grew in the ’70s cars seemed to get correspondingly smaller, and it seemed logical for me to get on this bandwagon and buy a mini-car too. So I settled on a low-slung, sporty red Ford Probe. But being somewhat super-sized myself, I had some problems getting into the thing.
Which brings up another point. You’d think if they are going to make the cars smaller, they’d at least have the decency to make the doors bigger.
After all, size does matter.
(Charlie Johnson is news editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 472-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)