I guess it must be that rumors of school starting again are in the air...mind you I'm not forbidden at my house from saying the word "school" it's just not a good idea. This is what people call "the elephant" in the room--largely there but not spoken of. I don't know if it is because my kids see so much of me in Summer or the fact that they are so under-stimulated that they need something to contemplate on, but I am starting to feel like an organism under the microscope in Science class. Take yesterday, for instance. My youngest daughter (she who knows all at 11 & 3/4 years) pinched my shoulder and exclaimed, "Mom, those aren't shoulder pads!!" I smiled. I'm not a complete idiot. I have watched several episodes of What Not To Wear on the TLC Channel. "Yes," I replied, "notice how thin they are...you can't even tell they're there. They add structure to my shoulder, drawing attention to the sturdiest part of me, lifting the eye toward my face!"
"Oh m'gosh!" It was much too late. She had stopped listening at "Yes," and was madly texting on her cell phone to a friend, possibly a sibling, hopefully not directly to Clinton and Stacey at TLC. All the while she was walking in circles around me, stopping occasionally to pinch a shoulder pad once more. This is not the first time I have been accosted by the local fashion police, nor the last, I fear. When the report card is published I'm anticipating the following grades: Political Correctness (B+), Fashionable Correctness (D).
Maybe the problem goes way back. When I was eight years old there was no "Achievement Days" Program at Church like there is now. Perhaps my generation was improperly trained. Instead of completing "Achievement Days" at the end of my twelfth year I completed "Merrie Miss". I think that "proper attitude" must have been in fashion. We had goals and lessons but clearly the focus wasn't on "Achievement" but on "Merrie".
My oldest daughter, now an adult, was fortunate enough ten years ago to attend what we called "(Name Withheld)'s Charm School and Boot Camp". This Achievement Day Leader held a dinner for the parents to show off their daughters' newly acquired etiquette skills. She also made the girls "drop and do twenty!!" when they had a class in fire-building but failed to create a flame. Was my "Merrie Miss" Leader too easy on me? I adored her. I still adore her. When I made reference once to my awkward "Merrie Miss" years she gasped, "You were fat?! I don't remember you being anything but beautiful!" Having weighed in at 126 pounds in 5th grade I'm baffled by her sincere memory of me. Love, love, love--that's all I remember her teaching me. That's all I remember feeling from her, toward her. It was amazing and wonderful. Come to think of it, she might have worn shoulder pads too, thin ones.
Maybe my problem is best illuminated for me as I sit here and write in the parking lot of The Mall. I don't shop. Had I been a mail-order bride I like to think that would have been a selling-point. "Here's a woman who's not going to sink the family budget through fashion purchases!" So I drive my daughters, who are obsessed with shopping, to the Mall and sit in the car as they skip happily in to spend their money. Their money. Ask them about it sometime, they would love to complain. And so I have a little break: take a nap, work a cross-word puzzle--I fared better in the Bay Area of California where the weather is mild. On extreme purchase trips in the desert of Utah (Mom in the car waiting for 2+ hours) I have wasted a lot of gas turning on the car a few minutes for heat in Winter and cooling off the car for a few minutes in Summer. That didn't seem like a big deal until filling up my car with fuel cost in cash what I used to make after an entire day of work at the office!!
When I tire of resting, or puzzling I start to people watch. Just a few minutes ago, for instance, I saw a woman and her four children emerge from a vehicle all wearing the same color scheme. All of them had light brown shirts, with different patterns of shorts. I was shocked. Yesterday, I don't think my daughter and I were even dressed in the same season! My bad...I look so good in Winter. Brown, oh yes, I remember hearing last Fall, that brown and pink together were the latest. Family friends feel so sorry for my kids at the beginning of the school year that they kindly offer "Do you want me to take you?!" School shopping that is. And they will come home, purchases in hand, excited to show me in fashion-show-style what is theirs.
Bring it on, Stacey and Clinton. Until the $5,000 Bank of America card with my name on it and my trip to New York to have you two throw out my wardrobe, I'll have to just settle for my "Merrie" personality and my barely-passing grade!
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3 comments:
That would an "A" for funny Mrs. Beck and that my dear, makes up for oh so much.
You are so cute. I remember the shoulder pads and that wasn't too long ago for me. :)
It's no secret where your children get their cleverness. It's enough, simply, that they share your witty DNA, but with how you positively exude it at every moment, it's bound to rub off. I guess this means I must spend more time around you, and hopefully I can aspire to someday be as sharp as a Beck. Or a Pack-Beck, that is.
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