The dreaded boxing bear coat from my childhood

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After talking about clothing brands in my other post, I made mention to someone in a comment about a coat I had as a kid, and iI started laughing. I laugh now, but at the time it was traumatizing. When I was a kid, we didn't have money. My parents knew how to stretch a dollar. One winter, my mom decided my brother and I needed new winter coats; we had outgrown our old ones, so she told my dad to take us and get us coats. My dad loaded my brother and me up, and we went to Value City to go coat shopping. We were told to look for coats, and I thought I was actually going to get to pick my coat out. My mom thought we were going to pick our coats out, but nope. I had taken different coats to my dad, and he kept telling me no. I wanted a coat that would help me fit in more at school; that is the exact opposite of what I got. I kept seeing all of my friends wearing those starter jackets and things, and I wanted something similar in coat form. Do you think I got anything remotely close? I'm guessing at this point you already know the answer to that. My dad, being as cheap as my dad is, wanted a coat that would last us a long time; he said if he was spending money, he didn't want us to need another coat for a long time. He found these giant boxing bear puffer coats. They were massive. They were red and black and reversible, and he bought them about five times too big. I remember being horrified. I hated wearing that coat. If I could avoid wearing it, I did. My mom was so mad at him; she thought they were absolutely ridiculous looking, but she didn't make him take them back, much to my dismay and I was stuck looking like a giant red or black marshmallow depending on the side I wore. This coat was so large it didn't fit in my locker at school. In elementary school we had lockers in our classroom and they were smaller lockers to boot, so my coat always had to sit at the side of the lockers. During Safety Patrol in the 6th grade, I had a hard time getting the belt over my coat. I was made fun of for this coat. If I felt down, I wasn't getting back up. Think Ralphie's brother Randy in A Christmas Story, only it was all my upper body; there was no snow suit. Of all the coats in that store, I ended up with the coat that made it so if the wind knocked me over on a hill, there was no saving me. My dad still brags about what a great find those coats were, even as I tell them they were terrible. I tell him about the jokes, and about how it didn't fit in my locker, but he says they lasted us years, and I told him a coat that was bought for me in elementary school should not have fit me as an adult, and it did. I actually gave that coat to my husband years later because he didn't own a coat, and I didn't want the coat. My husband wore it up until it finally wore out about ten years after I gave it to him. My mom took pity on me years later and bought me a normal winter coat. I only ever wore that puffer coat out of desperation because Ohio winters get awfully cold. I also wore it when I was shoveling the driveway, because it kept me warm. I always say I could look like a black marshmallow or a red marshmallow, but I always looked like I was a marshmallow while wearing it. If you want perspective of how big this coat was, my husband is 6'2," and when I gave it to him, he was around 180 lbs. It fit him wonderfully, and I was wearing that coat as a child who wasn't fully grown yet. My brother and I both got the same coat; I don't think my brother took as much issue with it as I did. He didn't care what he wore; he just wanted to leave the store. I would have settled with almost any coat other than that one. I was so mad at my dad over that coat. I think it's funny now, but as a child who just wanted to fit in and not be the sore thumb, it was humiliating. The picture I used is of my husband in my childhood coat standing with my son. At this point, that coat had lost some stuffing, so it's not even as big as it was when it was new.