Remember When Life Came In Small, Medium, And Large?

Remember when there used to be three sizes of toothbrushes, child-size, adult-medium, and adult-large? Now instead of adult-large toothbrushes there are weird options like "high", "reach", and "novelty giant", but where is "large"? Did large toothbrushes go the same way that the hard bristle option went when dentists decided they wanted to clean our teeth and bill us instead of letting us use a firm toothbrush to clean our own teeth, all pulled from stock? Men typically have larger hands, ergo they typically need larger toothbrushes.

And steak dinners in nicer restaurants used to come in three sizes, King-size, Queen-size, and something like Next-In-Line size, recognizing that while men will typically have a king-size appetite, the ladies might need fewer calories, and children require an even smaller portion. Now you can get different cuts of beef, but I have not seen steak offered in sized options in years.

A hundred years ago clothing was still hand-tailored, and I imagine that it fit very well. I do know that shirts had darts and gussets to shape them so that the cloth flowed smoothly over the body's contour. Fifty years ago department stores would offer to have ready-made clothing altered to fit you properly. It has been twenty, thirty years since a store altered clothing for me. I have to fit my individually sized body into artificially sized ready-made clothing. That artificial sizing of clothing is really rough on our culture. We walk around like potatoes dressed with Barbie Doll clothing for cinched waists, flat stomachs, and twig-like arms that we do not have. We might as well all start wearing one-size wrap-arounds for all the panache we have left. What is American style now anyway?

Caption: Remember When Life Came In Small, Medium, And Large?

by Annmarie Throckmorton 2019