Recently I have found myself needing a nice dress to wear to a wedding shower at a fancy location that my mom has deemed all the dresses I already own not good enough. This started out as an exciting thought because this meant new clothes, every girl's dream. It was all great until I was reminded the size I am is Dante's 12th layer of hell when it comes to shopping.

I am a size 16, for those that don't know that's the smallest size option in plus size sections and occasionally the largest size in non-plus size sections. This sounds perfect and like I have double the area to look in when shopping but let me tell you that that is the farthest thing from the truth.

When it comes to inventory what I've discovered is that stores usually don't carry a large amount in their smallest and largest sizes. This leaves me searching for the biggest sizes in normal areas, and hunting for the smallest sizes in plus size areas. Once you do find something, if it's in the normal section it'll be super tight on my boobs but I suck it up because that usually makes them look great, or if it's in plus size someone has decided that if your shopping in that section you just want a square sheet thrown on top of you to hid everything. NEWS FLASH makers of plus size clothes, that sack you want me to wear and feel great in makes me look like a bag of potatoes and even worse than when I came in in a pair of leggings and a T-shirt.

Then it comes to the fact that every store sizes their clothes differently, yesterday while going shopping for three hours I found only one dress that I tried on. It was at a store geared for larger women and have come up with their own sizes in the store. After asking and figuring my size was a three there I put it on and had so much extra fabric I needed their dress that equaled a size 12! Now I'm all for stores that are a little generous with their sizes, but that's just flat out lying to women. Figuring out I was a size 12 in that store was just about as frustrating as the last time I got measured for a bridesmaid dress and had to get a size 28, six sizes higher than what I actually am.

Sizes in clothes has popped up a couple times in the past year about clothing stores subtly shrinking their sizes and I'd believe it. But I think there also needs to be some regulation on what measurements are actually what size, because walking into new stores and having to figure that out is just as exhausting as my three-hour shopping trip of only trying on one dress. Needless to say, sorry mom I'm wearing a dress I already own to the shower.