Good Grief!

Someone wrote to Dave Barry’s blog requesting an investigation into men’s underwear sizes.

You need to do us men a great service and use your clout to investigate the Great Men’s Briefs Conspiracy, namely that underwear size has nothing to do with your waist size, so they never fit, but most [respectable] stores won’t let you return them, so you have to keep buying more till you get it right.

Wah. First of all, women’s underwear sizes don’t make sense either. Buying underwear the same size as your pants ain’t a good idea. Secondly, this indecipherable sizing scheme applies not only to women’s underwear, but pretty much all articles of women’s clothing. Unlike men, women can’t expect consistency when buying pants because sizes aren’t based on a standard such as a waist measurement but on an arbitrary number that varies between manufacturers and changes over time. And this guy thinks there’s a conspiracy against men?