The monkey made me do it

Why I wasn't kissed until high school

A couple of weekends ago I went down to my parent's new house for a mini-reunion, and caught them right in the middle of their great storage clean-out. Most of the boxes had been in the attic of their previous home for 15-20 years, and I had accumulated twelve boxes worth of junk through my childhood and early high school years that they badly wanted me to sort through. It's amazing how much CRAP one little person can collect! I had five boxes of stuffed animals, a full range of eyeless mystery animals all the way to a collection of Pound Puppies (and Pound Kitties! Wait, were they Pound Purries? Is it a good thing that I don't know this anymore? I vote yes.) that look brand new. I had a 2-foot-square box of just ribbons and trophies from my hick years in 4-H, and another two boxes of lumpy bad pottery from an ill fated college course. I can sculpt like a house on fire, but put me in front of a pottery wheel and you will get the shortest, thickest mugs you've ever seen. Then they'll explode in the kiln. Not that I'm bitter.

The best was the boxes of drawings and writing from when I was in junior high. I drew out what my wedding was going to look like. Imagine me, wearing glasses and sporting the biggest blond 'fro and gravity defying bangs, hand in hand with a brown-mulleted romeo (he also had bangs) and surrounded by baby blue clad family members and made-up friends with similar big hair and cheesy grins all around. I even drew us standing in an exaggerated 'V' pattern on the church steps like they do in all them high class small town weddin's

These were also in that box, and are what I wore from roughly age 8 to age 13 (additionally, from age 11-13 you have to imagine the braces and retainer action) (it was FIERCE). They fully and unconditionally explain why I was such a bust with the men-folk, though two of the pairs are official Strawberry Shortcake frames so apparently I at least made an attempt to wear labels at an early age.

(Side note: Check out the top pair's built in shading action. The top is slightly blue and the bottom is pink, so the wearer could seem like she was wearing eyeshadow and blush without actually getting in trouble from her mom. When worn with actual blue eyeshadow and pink blush, the effect was everything that the 80's ever wanted and needed)

posted by LadyJay @ 8:24 PM