Never trust a man to do a woman's job

Yesterday, Coby and I were at soccer practice and we get a phone call from Jill. She is desperate for us to stop at the store on the way home to pick up some underwear for her that will fit. She can't find any of her pre-pregnancy stuff and most of it would not fit at this time anyway since she just had a baby. She says that she needs like a size 12 or 14. No problem I say. I am always glad to serve.

After practice, Coby and I head over to Target. With a little searching, we locate the Lingerie section of the store. Amist a sea of bras, panties and other unmentionables, Coby and I locate what we think Jill is looking for. We begin to search for the right size. We search high and low, (getting quite a few stares from other women shopping in the section of the store) but the biggest size we can find is a 10. It seems fairly strange to me that a 10 would be the biggest size since Jill is not a big person, even just having a baby. I guess we must be looking in the wrong section. I go find teh Plus Sizes section but we can't find underwear anywhere in that section. I decide to call Jill. I tell her that we can't find a size 12... 10 is the biggest they have. Jill tells me to look for some help but don't come home without something. She is desperate!

Coby and I start looking for the well-hidden store employees. We finally find a young man (probably mid-20s) who asks us if we are finding everything alright. I explain to him that my wife just had a baby, I need to find her some underwear but I can't find any that are big enough. He lets me know that I am way out of his leauge on this one (tell me about it!) but he will help me find someone that can help. Finally we find a lady in the baby section that he quickly dumps us off on and hightails it out of there. I tell the lady what we are looking for and she proceeds to take us back to the wall we had searched high and low. She lets us know that they once had some that size but they must be all out. (I my mind I am wondering where this lady buys her underwear since she may have been about Jill's current size but it wasn't something that I was willing to ask her.)

By this time I am getting fairly desperate myself. I decide that since Jill told me not to come home without something, I grabbed the first package of size 10 I could find and figured if those wouldn't work, maybe I could go to Walmart later and see if they service more rounded women. Again the lady at the check-out counter gives Coby and I a funny look as we purchase some underwear that doesn't look like will fit us and we head home doing our good deed for the night.

We get home and I take the newly purchased underwear to Jill. Still a little groggy from sleeping she takes a look at what we had bought and throws them back at me with a lament that can't a man do anything right. First, I had bought the wrong kind of cut. I was smart enough to not buy the bikini kind but I had bought the "high-cut" rather than the "brief" ones. (Way too many different choices if you ask me.) Second, I am a guy and I don't read instructions. Jill told me she needed a 12-14 and so that is what I had looked for. She told me to read the back of the package and here is the chart that I find...



This is a little hard to see but of course, sizes do not line up. Jill had wanted a pant size of 12-14. I should have bought more like a size 7 or 8. The light finally goes on why I had not been able to find the size that I thought I was looking for. (Why the lady at the store and not been a little more helpful was beyond me. I think she would have asked why I wanted such a large size or how big is your wife?) I tell Jill that I will go back and get the right size but she is fed up with me by now and calls her friend to go and get what she needs. (Which is what she probably should have done in the first place.)

What I want to know is why do women have to have so many different size scales? Why can't a size 10 mean the same thing for everything? In men's clothing, if I buy a pair of socks and I wear a size 10 shoe, then I need a size 10 sock. If I have a 34" waist, then I need size 34". None of this trying to make the numbers seem smaller than they really are. Second, why can't the people that they have model the clothing on the package give you an accurate picture of what you are buying? The picture of the lady on the package I bought was probably a little smaller than Jill. Looks like what I am looking for, right?

Anyway, any of you ladies that need to have your husbands run such errands... save yourself the trouble of us messing it all up and get a woman to do the job. This is way too complicated for us to handle.