This is what happens when you don’t have much of an opinion, and you are asked to write a column for the opinion section of the newspaper.

You get this column.

Oh sure, it could’ve been easy for me to take the easy road. As a sports editor, I could have gone after the low hanging fruit and expounded for days on how today’s supposed “fans” of scholastic sports are driving coaches and game officials away from the game. They are, and the situation is getting worse with each passing year.

Or I could’ve done a column about something safe. Like say, my frustration over people who are too lazy to operate their vehicle’s turn signals. I’m talking to you, Mr. Van Driver, with seemingly no sense of what’s going on around you as you make a left turn across traffic from the right lane … in front of yours truly.

But there’s scads of fellow journalists out there writing those kinds of articles. I see a highway lane instructional meme on Facebook almost every week. I’m betting Van Guy has been too self absorbed to notice.

Nope, I’m going to make a plea to the fashion world from those of us who rue the idea of having to buy clothes for ourselves.

A couple years ago, I’d noticed that I’d get winded from scaling the 8,000-some odd steps to the summit of the Fairborn soccer stadium pressbox – scaling Mt. Pressbox should be a local charity challenge or something. It’s brutal.

I wasn’t just, whew-that-was-a good-climb winded. I was whoah-my-heart-is-beating-out-of-my-chest-and-appears-to-be-frowning-at-me winded. And so I joined a gym near my home.

As a result, I lost about 40 pounds and I’ve kept the weight off.

As another result, my older pants and shorts started to look baggy on me.

As yet another result, I’ve had to punch two extra notches into my belt in order for it to actually do its job and hold stuff up. (You’re all welcome.)

I’m recently divorced, and so the wonderful 25-year wave of NOT buying my own clothes has finally run out.

Last spring, I set off to buy myself a couple pairs of shorts.

I knew my waist size, so I figured I was good to go.

I saw two pairs of cargo shorts – us sports journalists, with our lens caps, note pads, stop watches, digital recorders and pens, we LOVE cargo shorts – they were my size, and so I gleefully bought them.

In and out of the store in like five minutes. Life was great!

… But I get home and they didn’t fit. Whaaa?

Here’s my plea to the fashionistas of the world. You folks out there who determine clothing styles, who write-up a fancy logo and who smack a size label on the clothing item so’s that us yahoos will buy your stuff. I’m talking to you guys.

You know those mannequins you dress up for us to look at? I’ve got an idea.

How ‘bout you set up a long line of mannequins in your factories, with varying sizes and shapes — tall, short, wide, thin — if people wear it, you need a mannequin for it. …. and use it as a worldwide template for how you size your clothes!

I suggest this because, apparently you guys just slap on a size to anything remotely in the ballpark of that size, laugh uncontrollably, sip on your iced latte and go home, probably with nary a turn signal.

That leads to us fashion buffoons making countless trips back and forth from the store in order to find clothing that actually fits us.

Oh, I’m just half a buffoon nowadays. I wait my turn and go into a fitting room, now. Even for cargo shorts.

But how could something that has a size-34 waist (with no real requirement for its length. They ARE shorts, after all), how could that not fit? A size 34 in shorts should be the same circumference around my waist as a size 34 in, oh say, blue jeans. Right?

Apparently not.

So Fashion World, get your stitch together. Line up your mannequins, use them as a template. If a pair of shorts fits the Size 34 mannequin, by all means place a Size 34 patch on that pair and send them on their way. If the shorts fit your Size 30 mannequin (like my original cargo shorts would have), guess what they should have sewn into them?

It’s math. I’m very sympathetic to that. I’ll wait.

Ding! Time’s up. That’s right, you’d put a 30 on them.

Sizes should be uniform throughout the clothing industry.

Then us clothes shopping rookies might actually come back more often. Maybe.