rekkidblogga

This conversation is going nowhere

It's fitting, perhaps, that current national attention is generally focused on the debate over whether what we do at 17 defines us as adults. Judging by the discourse on social media, there are plenty of folks out there who certainly write like they're stuck in the teen years. Or maybe pre-school.

If you're going to start viewing the Adult Me as Me At 17, you may as well know the hard, cold facts. Better that I tell you than someone who once stood in line behind me 30 years ago when I was buying a poster at Spencer Gifts in the mall. (More on that later.)

Settle in and prepare yourself for the Me At 17 you didn't know. After all, the new standards say that I've lived as an unwitting Peter Pan who's never grown up and who shall potentially be pilloried for having a beer during the odd weekday. What follows here won't be pretty, but this is how we wanted it, right?

THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ME WHEN I WAS 17, UNLESS I TOLD YOU ABOUT SOME OF THEM AND EVEN THEN YOU PROBABLY WEREN'T REALLY LISTENING

I had an afterschool/weekends job at B. Dalton Bookseller. At this job, I earned the then-princely sum of $3.50 an hour for standing behind the cash register, trying not to giggle when my friends' moms and/or my former high school math teacher bought cheesy romance novels with titles like Bed, Breakfast and Bedlam, A Not-So-Perfect Marriage and what sounds like its obvious complementary story, Just A Normal Marriage, and Send In The Clown (I kid you not). My friend and co-worker Brandon and I sometimes hung out at the Information Desk, mylar-wrapping items with reckless abandon and sometimes not answering customer calls with "Thank you for calling B. Dalton at Southlake Mall. This is Mandi/Brandon. How may I help you?" but instead with a simple "Pizza Hut." This confused some callers and there were times when they apologized to us for calling the wrong business. They'd immediately call back, we'd answer "Pizza Hut" again, they'd ask us if this was really the phone number for B. Dalton because "I'm looking in the phone book and it says this is B. Dalton's number" and we'd say "No sir/ma'am, this is Pizza Hut." They'd hang up again and call back, undaunted. When we'd answer with a sprightly "Thank you for calling B. Dalton at Southlake Mall. This is Mandi/Brandon. How may I help you?" one of two things would happen: Either they'd hang up, likely depressed that their order for delivery of a double-pepperoni pan pizza would have to wait, or pause and then, in the confused but hopeful tone of those who never admit defeat, ask us if their books were in and if we'd mylar-wrapped them. We'd assure them that we had mylar-wrapped them ("With reckless abandon, sir/ma'am!") and, thus reassured, they hung up and called Pizza Hut, where some snarky 17-year-old clerk answered the phone with "B. Dalton."

I didn't go to senior prom. Or any prom. I wasn't asked and I couldn't dance, besides. I am not ashamed of never having prommed. I know people who went to prom and their lives were never the same, mainly because the day before they hadn't been to a prom but the next day they had. I'm proud of being the kind of 17-year-old who didn't put myself through anything like that. It must be tough, trying to explain to people throughout life that one day, you hadn't been to a prom but the next day you had. But we can't change the past. Unless we're pretty good at Photoshop or have killer hacking skills. Then we can change whatever we want. So... sure. You BET I went to prom. YEAH. Every year. I danced magnificently, too.

I lost a lot of weight between junior and senior years and while that's good because it's always positive to get healthier, it wasn't totally awesome because I looked like a wraith with giant hair waiting for a care package from the UN. Being almost skeletally thin allowed me to do things I'd always dreamed about but never had been able to do before, like shop in the Juniors department at Rich's. Mine was suddenly a whirlwind life of spending my $70 B. Dalton paychecks on acid-washed Levi's, all things hypercolor and a variety of then-popular t-shirts, one of which was emblazoned with MTV REMOTE CONTROL in honor of that fine, mind-opening game show where contestants sat in overstuffed pastel easy chairs and demonstrated their knowledge of subjects like TOM PETTY 101 by answering such in-depth questions as "When did Tom Petty tell Martha Quinn that he smoked his first joint?" and "When did Tom Petty tell Martha Quinn that he had a joint in his pocket and maybe they should smoke it right now?" and "Hey, has anyone SEEN Martha Quinn since she got on Tom Petty's tour bus to smoke that joint?" Skinny Me At 17 always sort of knew that my newfound status as Not A Fat Girl Anymore probably wouldn't last after the Freshman 15 ballooned to the Senior 75, but she was okay with that as long as she could remain generally healthy and never be able to buy clothes in Juniors again, especially since after 1992 they threw out all the MTV t-shirts except the "Beavis & Butthead" ones and acid-washed Levi's had been replaced by those dreadful drop-waist dresses and black leggings that the girls on "My So-Called Life" all wore. You may look at me and think "She could lose a few pounds" but under our new standards, I'm still a skinny rail who desperately needs fashion advice.

When I was 17, you'd often find me tooling around the mall and its adjacent neighborhoods in my 1988 Honda Accord hatchback, solemnly listening to Depeche Mode cassettes and pondering the meaning of life. "People ARE people," I'd think, realizing I'd stumbled onto a life-changing epiphany thanks to a bargain-bin cassette purchase at the record store. Passing the home of a high school classmate, I'd compare our worldviews. "Bryan doesn't care if people are people and even if he had his own Personal Jesus, which I suspect he doesn't, would he understand why it's so crucial in these changing times that we all have someone to hear our prayers? Someone who cares?" I wore a lot of black mock turtlenecks then.

Like so many other 17-year-olds at the time, I spent my fair share of late '80s afternoons and evenings at the mall, making a beeline for Spencer Gifts, that bastion of overpriced wares appealing mainly to those chronically underserved consumers who can't hear someone say the phrase "booby prize" without snorting Coca-Cola out their nose and turning red. Hippie-esque lava lamps, a t-shirt screaming FRANKIE SAY RELAX like the one Ross squeezed into on that episode of "Friends" -- Spencer had them all and more. Anything your parents would hate, Spencer sold -- along with maybe some things they'd like but wouldn't tell you about or would try to hide in Dad's sock drawer. For me, nerdy as I was, Spencer was my place to buy all the rock posters I couldn't find at the record store. In 1990, a full three years into my "21 Jump Street" obsession, I spent the ungodly amount of $4.50 on a poster featuring former "21 Jump Street" star Richard Grieco as his new spinoff character, Dennis Booker. The next week, I got a high school friend who worked in the library to laminate my Booker poster, ensuring that it would never fray or fade. That poster was tacked to my bedroom wall until 1991 when, being a college freshman, I cast it aside ruthlessly in favor of a free Red Hot Chili Peppers poster I'd scored at my new, cool COLLEGE job -- working at a record store near my house. After the RHCP poster came a succession of free poached-from-work wall art including an old "Edward Scissorhands" movie poster and R.E.M. "Monster" promo. Now I have blank walls, a humidifier and a white noise machine in my bedroom because I believe that the bedroom is to be used only for sleep or sex. Frippery should be banished to the guest room where it belongs.

I thought eating mozzarella sticks at Bennigans was a really grownup thing to do.

This concludes my admissions. I attest that they are all truthful and fairly embarrassing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have bills to pay, a yard to mow and a home to manage, some acid reflux medicine to buy and an appointment with my podiatrist to keep. It ain't easy being a kid these days.

posted by rekkidbraka @ 2:05 PM