Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase (35 page)
Authors: Jen Lancaster
Tags: #Form, #General, #American, #Art, #Personal Memoirs, #Authors; American, #Fashion, #Girls, #Humor, #Literary Criticism, #Jeanne, #Clothing and dress, #Literary, #Biography & Autobiography, #Biography, #Essays, #21st Century
With almonds.
Possibly because they were circa 1966.
A too-tight pink parka from Lands’ End that I couldn’t zip over my green wool crew-neck sweater.
A scratchy purple V-neck.
Okay, fine, I’ll be driving in eight more years. Math is not my strong suit.
Although I do kind of dig
Zoom
, which is on right afterward. That’s Boston, Mass—0-2-1-3-4!
Annoyingly, I have to, at least ’til September, when school starts.
You know, the one where she’s smuggling pencil erasers? Frankly, she makes what should be a tasteful one-piece suit look too racy and I don’t care for it.
Made from lumpy buckwheat and served with but a single drop of faux maple syrup and no butter whatsoever.
Fine, just starve me.
Unlike Maisy, the dog I have now. She’s so accommodating she’ll even eat the napkin.
Other activities included taking the Pepsi Challenge (I preferred neither) and writing “Happy Birthday, America” on each other’s backs in suntan lotion.
Personally, I was rooting for Ford, having had the opportunity to meet him at a rally in the parking lot of Bloomingdale’s. Something about seeing armed guards on top of the mall coupled with the opportunity to skip school for the afternoon seemed
so very right
to me.
It’s the batwings.
Did you know package stores don’t sell packages? Deceptive advertising if you ask me.
However, I’m a fan of our refreshment break since it’s the only time I’m ever allowed to drink Hawaiian Punch. I’m open to allowing that part to continue.
The correct answer is no.
I have a delightful Pucci-inspired bikini but I simply cannot execute a perfect swan dive in it without losing my bottoms.
Got a Barbie Dream House, woo!
I’m a tremendous fan of Patrick Duffy’s entire body of work.
Unfortunately, the director rejected my suggestion he put a charming little brown-haired girl in the shot. Their loss. I could move some property and casualty insurance, yo.
You can’t name a boy Jodi! It’s simply not done!
I kick so much ass at Mystery Date!
Is it just me or is that a funny word?
On my last school field trip we toured the CBS studios in New York and screened a television pilot. You need to incorporate a little more Hollywood if you want to impress me.
Years later he told me he had no intention of ever buying me a horse. He simply refused to negotiate with a ten-year-old.
Diagnosed by the same physician who later treated me for hepatitis when actually I just had mono.
No one tells me I’ve got a real pretty mouth, though. So there’s that.
I admit my pulse quickened a bit when I saw a whole paddock full of horses.
A youth organization created by the Department of Agriculture.
To this day, my accent will creep back in when I’m excited. (Or drinking.)
Except for Auntie Virginia and a couple of my mom’s sisters’ husbands. I suspect this is why he’s taken every opportunity to move farther and farther away from them. I bet we live in Alaska by the time I graduate.
I’d ask who the genius was that thought carpet in the bathroom was a good idea. But I imagine it’s the same person who put it there to match the gold butterflies in the wallpaper.
Or possibly into an abutment.
I am in college before someone finally strings a cable line from town onto our street. By the time I got my MTV, I was ready for VH1.
And smell the horse glue that he keeps in pots at the edge of his workbench.
Todd, a couple of cousins, and I finally ventured down there after my grandfather’s funeral in the late eighties. We formed a human daisy chain and made it four feet into the underbelly of the house before we got spooked and ran back upstairs.
He swore a lot!
Auntie Virginia gave me a lot of Avon products as presents. Mom wouldn’t let me throw the boxes away because she told me they were valuable, so I spent my entire adolescence with only one usable bathroom drawer because the rest were filled with old packaging.
A few years later when their dog Edwina finally passed away, there was a lot of speculation as to whatever happened to her body. I kind of don’t want to know.
Lady, after two kids? No.
Wavy, brown, parted in the middle, just like every other girl on the bus.
Summer of My German Solider
starring Kristy McNichol—entertaining
and
educational!
This is neither the first nor last time someone will have this conversation with me.
Or it would, if I had a boyfriend . . . and if that boyfriend enjoyed viscous cotton candy flavor.
Then again, I don’t have her childbearing hips, so I don’t need to overcompensate with, like, utterly flawless hair.
They’re so tight around the crotch region that I technically may not be a virgin anymore.
Like, it’s my fault her grody boyfriend asked me to dance?
I mean, as long as I keep them on.
I could absolutely pick it out if given a multiple choice quiz.
Why do all the boys in my class think being a gymnast is so hot? What’s so erotic about a balance beam?
Wait, did he just touch my butt? And did I like it?
I suspect it’s because I’m a terrible singer. Sigh.
Or, for that matter, bending.
It’s the Paris of Indiana.
Yet I stand by my decision not to feature the soil judging competition.
By the way? Last I heard Kari was doing nails for a living in a little shop down by the jail.
Who’s laughing now?
My favorite one reads “My mother thinks I’m at the movies.” Although, unfortunately, I probably
am
at the movies.
Hi! My name is Jennifer! I speak French! I like your shoes! I’m going to France! Maybe I will buy your shoes!
Kahlua or other coffee-flavored brandy and cream.
Yum.
I will have these again.
For now, she hopes!
Las Vegas Tourism Board, you totally owe me.
And false bravado.
The Methodist church I went to used to be pretty clear on the notion of loving and accepting everyone. Their Jesus would totally have gay friends. The Baptists? Maybe not so much.
Even now, almost twenty-five years later, it remains one of the greatest nights of my life.
So. Very. Grounded.
Dad said I had a choice of Purdue or IU.
And really, what’s more Roman than salty white bread dipped in nacho cheese?
In my day, we didn’t have Internet memes! We had paper quizzes! And we answered them in longhand! Uphill! In the snow!
Wham, naturally.
Facts of Life
. I
so
want to be Blair Warner. Were
Gossip Girl
around at this time, I’d have wanted to be Blair Waldorf.
Late that night, my brother locked my friend Mary and me in his room. He said nothing good happens in a fraternity house after three a.m. But from the sounds of the party in the hallway, he was all wrong.
It’s called outsourcing and American businesses should totally look into it.
Well, maybe. I mean, dude, the seventies are over.
Yet she wonders why I’m a smart-ass.
If it weren’t weird to do so, I mean.
And thrusts them up so high I could rest my cheek on them.
And my boobs in my ears.
We’ve had more DUIs than acceptances to Notre Dame.
I blame all of tonight’s accidental teen pregnancies on the juniors, too.
Above the fold!
Also, every time I get a high mark on a composition, she sends it to them. I imagine they’re a bit tired of reading my English homework, too.
Despite her penchant for frosty white eyeliner.
P.S. No, I don’t care to be your pen pal.
Not sure what “ancestry” we’re celebrating—our town’s unofficial fondness for racism? Having the highest rate of cardiovascular disease in the state?
Try and guess who’s in the lead car. Hint: not me.
Lie. I’m more like 135-140.
Lie. I’m more like five feet seven.
Lie. She enjoys reading a book by the pool and eating candy.
This is a trend I embrace for almost the next twenty years.
This is a trend they embrace for almost the next twenty years.
Mandatory due to a city noise violation.
As for Jimmy . . . three days after he dropped me off at campus, I called him and said, “Um, yeah, I’m a little sister at a fraternity now and we won’t be dating anymore.” What could I say? Seventeen’s synonymous with fickle. Jimmy was furious and gave me the choice of dating him or dating other people. I chose other people and we never talked after that. I heard through the grapevine that he started dating a very pretty, complacent blond girl who was still in high school. They started d-o-i-n-g it days af ter they went out for the first time and she totally let him boss her around. As a result, she wasn’t able to stop him when he started experimenting with drugs. She didn’t fight back when he slapped her around. She did nothing when he began to break into people’s houses, stealing their electronics so he could fund his habit. And she was shocked when he was finally sent to prison for robbing a home with a sawed-off shotgun. Oh, Jimmy. That’s why you never choose a Marilyn.
Also, silk flowers? No.
nd what’s wrong with my jean jacket? It was a huge hit when I went to Europe.
I didn’t know how to spell this, so I Googled “Irish stick for hitting.”
If those letters automatically up my perceived level of hotness? All the better.
But what do I know? I’m just a freshman hoping to become a notoriously flighty pledge.
Aside from making yourself more likely to get burned up in a fire.
Delicious! I ate every bite.
