Give me Plaid or Give me Death!

From the time I started middle school, picking out clothes for school was a source of serious anxiety. Before then I'd had it easy. My choices: I could wear the plaid overall skirt, white collared shirt, white socks with black Mary Jane flats or I could wear all of that and swap out the Mary Jane flats for penny loafers… Or I could wear all of that and trade in the penny loafers for my personal favorites, my Charlie Brown shoes. Back then life was so simple. I didn’t have to worry about fads and matching because I always matched. Everything went with plaid…

And then came middle school. My crutch of a standardized dress code was kicked out from under me and I fell headfirst into the scary world of fashion. Kids today, they just don’t realize just how fortunate they are. I’ve looked at clothes for middleschoolers and highschoolers and I have to say, it’s pretty difficult to mess up an outfit these days. Fashion today is relatively tame compared to the fashion from the 80s and early 90s. Our fashionistas were Punky Brewster, Blossom and the crew from Saved by the Bell for goodness sake. When I looked into my closet there was a world of possibility: Tie-dye, neon, leggings, stirrup pants, body suits, alternating different color socks, striped jeans, tapered jeans, pegged jeans, high water jeans (okay those were never cool, but unfortunately unavoidable if you were a rapidly growing teen)… You name it and it was in my closet.

And my parents were no help either. Tired of hearing, "But that’s what everyone’s wearing!!!" they’d long since abandoned the idea of trying to follow the latest out of YM and Teen Beat.

Everyday for me was a crapshoot. Some days were good, others well, not so good. The problem with the not so good days however was that I was stuck at school all day forced to ensure the shame of my fashion faux pas until my parents came to pick me up. I mean I was 13, so it wasn’t as if I could run home and change.

One thing that always baffled me though, was that most times I remember giving myself the once over in a full-length mirror before leaving the house. Then I'd get into the family Volvo and sit happily chattering away with my brother Evan until I stepped out into the light of day only to realize…

"What the heck?!"

My jeans were too short! Brilliant... cause I was looking for a way to accent my missmatched socks. Problem solved. Oh and LA Gears with a dressy blouse? That was a logical pairing...

There's only one thing I want to say here:

"Really Mom? Really Dad? "

You had to have known that didn’t look right. In which case… shame on you.

And double shame on you for allowing Evan to leave the house in multicolored MC Hammer pants and Doc Martins…

We were not pawns placed in your lives for your amusement. We were your children. You just wait until you can't dress yourselves. Just you wait. Then we'll see who has the last laugh...