Once upon a time, there was a tall, thin girl named Jane.
Now it so happened that Jane was on her way to the cafeteria for her lunch break when she decided to stop at a nearby thrift store, instead.
She searched and she searched through the racks of clothing. Some clothes were too big. Some clothes were too old. Some of them were faded under the arms.
No, not with sweat stains. Jane knew the clothes were classy, even if her mother (who Jane thought was really the Big Bad Wolf) thought they were trashy.
After her thrift store lunch, Jane went to the office where she worked with her seven bosses. She had just arrived and sat down at her desk, when all of a sudden Stacey walked in with Colette.
"Why Jane," cried Stacey. "How terribly thin you look! You must be no larger than an eight." And she and Colette proceeded down the hallway to the copy machine.
But Jane just wasn't sure. "Can I really accept that Stacey thinks I am no bigger than an eight," she said to herself. "I wonder what my boss Bob would say?"
Jane knew that Bob was a big kidder, but she decided to ask him anyway.
"Bob, am I tall and thin?" Jane asked, twisting the hem of her latest thrift store find (a lovely sweater, hardly worn at all). "Everyone always says I am skinny. Don't you agree?"
But Bob was annoyed at the fact that Jane was hung up on her looks and never got any work done. "She spends every afternoon in the bathroom, staring endlessly into the mirror," he thought. "I guess she thinks she's fat, so I'd better tell her the truth."
"No," he said. "Jane, the honest truth is that you're fat and no one will ever love you or think you are of value, because you aren't skinny like Peggy or Tania down in Accounting."
Poor Jane.
She began sobbing and ran down the hallway towards the elevator, grabbing blindly for her gently used hankie as she ran.
She ran out of the building and straight to the nearest thrift store.
"I want to buy all of the socks you have," she told the cashier. "And the watches. So long as they are two for $10, of course."
Jane knew that running out of her office without warning would probably mean a trip to the unemployment line. Nevertheless, she spent a pleasant afternoon shopping and purchasing many bargains.
When it was late enough in the day, she drove home to the lovely flat she shared with her mother (aka S.O.B.; Sad Ordinary Blouses) and showed her mother what she had purchased.
"Oh dear," said her mother. "I do hope you didn't buy any sweat stained clothes for me. I just don't want to wear someone else's cast-offs."
This made Jane so nervous that she was compelled to rush into the spare room and rummage frantically through the bags containing her extra clothing. She pulled and tugged, until finally she had every last piece of clothing laid out in a handy pile so she could begin to go through it all.
"I'm going to check to make sure every single piece of clothing is perfect," she said to herself. "After all, if strangers always tell me I am tall and thin, then what Bob and my mother say shouldn't bother me at all. Should it?"
And with that, she began muttering to herself.
"Tall and thin, tall and thin. Can I accept that I know I am no bigger than an eight?"
Years later, scientists excavating the foundation of a forgotten building found what seemed to be a mountain made out of rotting fabric. At the bottom of the fabric mountain were the skeletal remains of what was presumed to be a woman. Clutched in one hand was a hanger - and in the other, the remains of a sizing tag.
The print was faded, but still legible. The lead scientist bent down and peered at it until he was able to read the number on the tag.
Twelve.
"Wow," he said. "I always heard the tenants of this building were no bigger than size eight. I wonder what happened to her?"
