What's the Deal With Basketball and Enormous Clothing?
I'm pissed. This has simply gone too far. You may have seen my previous post of me in my new basketball uniform. It looks okay because I was tucked in, and also the fabric was thick and double-layered because it was reversable. However, last week we got our uniform replaced with a light micro-fibre version. A teammate gave me my singlet still in its wrapper, and I noticed the sticker which said XXXL. You have got to be fucking kidding me.
See, I am what I call a "lean build". Other people call me skinny, which pissed me off. They tell me I should eat more, and all I can think is that they should die more. Fuck you. I eat like a racehorse with a tapeworm - I just make sure I eat good food, and I have always excercised and played sport. Don't insult me because you're a lazy piece of crap. Sure, I don't have a lot of muscle bulk - several times I thought I should drink protein shakes and lift weights, but the problem with that is if I ever stopped, I would simply go back to my current physique only with extra skin like a lipo-suction patient.
And really, I'm super-stoked about my body. I'm fit, strong enough for anything I need to do, and I have a feeling that the reason I have hardly ever been injured is because I don't weigh so much. The only thing I have to be careful of is my selection of clothing. The last thing I want to do is accentuate my ganglyness so I often wear ball-hugging jeans with flares, and I buy my t-shirts several sizes too small. This is because sizes are generally calibrated by height, which as a realtively tall person doesn't work for me. I usually spring for size M. I don't need the sleeves to come down to my elbows anyway. This worked out pretty well for me in the past since much of my clothing were hand-me-downs from my older brother who was shorter than me.
Basketball has always been an issue for me. For some reason (probably black people), basketball clothing is always in super-large sizes. This fashion quickly made its way to my small town in New Zealand. I still have a singlet for my team when I was 11 years old, and it still fits me.Hell, I'm still growing into it. I still have memories of going up the court on a fast break, dribbling with my right hand while using my left hand to lift the shoulder part of the singlet back onto my shoulder.
So when I got my new XXXL singlet, my heart dropped. I put it on, and it looked more like curtains than a singlet. Seriously, a singlet should never "drape". I've watched enough Project Runway to know this. The armholes were so huge that I could fit three of my arms through each one, which would be great if I were Vishnu. I feel like the "after" picture of an advert for a diet programme. This singlet has so much fabric that I felt like a hippy lady who decided to go from hemp to microfibre. Worst of all, I felt like that little kid again running up the court worrying more about the singlet falling off his frame more than scoring the ball - the kid that has been called skinny his whole life.
You may think that I am exaggerating, but I could seriously fit two people inside this singlet. You don't believe me? Here is a visual representation. I put my pillow in the front, and photoshopped myself again into the singlet. Note that the fabric is not being stretched, and there is still room for another arm. [Note: try not to get too turned on at the image of me spooning myself.]
(Never mind the fact that a double Mad-Dog would undoubtedly be the greatest basketball player of all time)
What is even more annoying is that I specifically asked for a size L. Well, I asked for an M, but my Japanese teammates kept saying that I was the tallest player on the team (not entirely true) so I should go up a few sizes. Eventally I settled on an L, which became this comically large XXXL. Now, I don't entirely blame my teammates. Japanese people - and expecially those who play basketball - are conditioned to think that "American Fashion" is cool. The thing is, it's cool on black people, not white guys who get pissed off when people call him skinny - which everyone will continue to do if I'm wearing these drapes.
Look, I'm not asking for a return to the short-shorts of the 80s or skintight cycling uniforms, but can we please stop trying to put me in these ridiculous clothes? Thank you.
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