I have a memory - or, rather, a series of memories - from my childhood. Whenever my mom and I would go shopping for new clothes for me (usually around the back-to-school season), we would look around for clothes that fit me, and we would discover that, in general, stores tended not to carry clothes in precisely my size. They would have clothes a little too big for me, and a little too small for me, but rarely just right. It was like there was a hole in the range of sizes, and that hole was exactly my size. Worse, as I grew, the hole moved with me, so that even over the course of several years as my size changed, it was always difficult to find clothes that fit.

Upon reaching teenager-hood and then adulthood, I finally grew out of the hole, and was able to generally find what I wanted in the size I wanted it. I didn't think much about my clothes sizes.

For the past several years, I've been wearing pants with a waist size of 36. I used to be skinnier, but I figured as I aged I was slowly starting to expand. But then, over the past year or so, I lost some weight. I correspondingly also lost some girth. Now not all of my size 36 pants fit so well anymore. I still wear them, but I have to cinch up my belt a little bit, and I'd rather not do that. I've discovered that size 34 is still too tight, but size 36 is just a bit too big. So I'm a 35. That's a fairly middle-of-the-road waist size: not too tiny, not too fat. You'd think it would be easy to find pants in that size.

You would be wrong. Last night I went out looking for a new pair of jeans with a 35 waist. I covered Old Navy and Sears (including the Lands' End section, since I love them so much), and I must have seen a few hundred pairs of jeans. Only one of them had a 35 waist, and it had an inseam of 38 (I take a 32) (plus it was an ugly color). It appears that with my recent weight loss, the "hole" of my childhood has caught up with me again, and clothing manufacturers are conspiring against me and refusing to make apparel that fits my particular size. My kingdom for a size 35 pair of pants!

It's been tough being a minority - one of those rare people who don't grow or shrink in two-inch increments - my entire life. I feel the discrimination and hatred, but my plight is generally unnoticed.

My only options appear to be: 1) buy a 36 and cinch up my belt, 2) pig out on Mothers' Day cheesecake and get back to where a 36 is comfortable, 3) continue losing weight (an unsure proposition) until a 34 fits, or 4) go to landsend.com and buy a pair of 35 jeans that are available only online. I went with option 4.