Alright everyone, settle down and let me tell you about the greatest store to ever exist in my lifetime.

This past summer, we were living in Medicine Hat, Alberta and one day, we took a trip over to Lethbridge and surrounding area to do some exploring. Before we came home, we wanted to do a little shopping. We went to the mall and our first stop was Old Navy.

Now usually whenever we had previously gone to Old Navy, my wife would be checking out all the racks and sections and I would just be slowly wandering behind, providing the occasional comment on whatever item of clothing she held up, and I wouldn’t even bother trying to find clothes that fit me in the men’s section. But this time, I decided to wander around on my own, and started to pick out some really great shirts that looked like they might actually fit. I held onto them with the intent of trying them on but honestly still wasn’t too sure. Even though at this time I had lost around 170 or so pounds, I still didn’t believe that I could possibly be shopping at a store with regular sizes. But along the way, I found more and more that seemed like it was going to fit me, and even a few items that looked like they were too big!

By the time I met up with my wife, I had an armload of clothes and a look of pure excitement on my face. She was shocked to see me loaded up with clothes and I was rapidly trying to explain that everything looked like it would fit and everything was so incredibly cheap and “isn’t this absolutely the most exciting thing you’ve ever seen?!?”

You see, I had never shopped for clothes in a “normal size” store before. I had long since given up on ever shopping in a regular clothing store. All my shopping had to be done either in big and tall menswear stores, or online where I had no way of knowing what things would actually look like. This was the very first time that I had even bothered to look at clothes and specifically prices in regular sizes.

Oh my goodness. Let me tell you the horrors of shopping for clothes at big and tall stores. I love that they exist, and bless them for being in business and providing clothes to those that need it, but no matter how average the shirt might look, the prices are insane. I don’t want to pay $60+ for a plain t-shirt thank you very much. Forget trying to find anything decent for less than around $100 when you’re looking for something in a size 7XL. I hated shopping. There was almost nothing that made me happy, and when it did, and I felt like I looked good, I felt horrible when it came time to pay the bill. It’s simply not fun buying a few items that are essentials and spending a few hundred dollars. I never felt like I got any extra value out of my clothes for those prices. It’s not like the quality of the materials or construction was superb.

So I ended up trying on a bunch of clothes at Old Navy that day, and I looked in the mirror and realized how good I looked in normal size clothes for the first time in my life. I had gone from a 7XL to an XL. Keep in mind I didn’t expect that and had actually brought lots of 2XL clothes into the change room with me only to find that they were too big! That’s another problem I really had never experienced before.

So my wife and I were again in old navy a few days ago and I was holding up an XL shirt, thinking that it looked a little big. So I left the store with a really nice regular large shirt on clearance for $3. Now that I’m in regular sizes, I can actually shop around, get good deals, and buy a wardrobe of clothes for the same price I used to pay for 2 or 3 shirts.

I know sizing is all over the place at different stores, but Old Navy is the first place I ever bought regular size clothes at a great price, and I’ll always have a love for that store, because of that experience. Now, every time someone mentions Old Navy, my ears perk up and I get very invested in the conversation. I have been known to bring up the greatness of Old Navy in any random conversation just so that I may proclaim my love for the greatest clothing store ever to have existed. Also just to be clear, they didn’t pay me to say this. Although I would very excitedly agree to be a brand ambassador or something. Seriously, sign me up.

After buying my first regular sized clothes, my wife celebrated with me by treating ourselves to a Purdy’s ice cream bar, of course. Because there’s always room to treat yo’ self.