Any time one of my favorite authors, Jen Hatmaker, mentions her horrifying Jr. High hair experience, (which is often) I am transported back to Jr. High, myself.
I wanted two things between 1987 and 1989, and those were
one of those phones that looked like a high heeled shoe that only rich girls had,
and professionally spiral permed hair.
But, my mother’s motto was “Is close enough,” so she took me for a perm, alright.
However, it was a regular old lady kind of perm in an old lady kind of salon.
I can still remember the sun bleached posters on the walls.
Pastel women with feathered flat-tops like the Patron Saints of Aqua Net gazing down at a very disappointed me.
My bitterness about it has clearly lasted much longer than the curls.
Add to the obvious insult the instructions she gave to “take some off the sides,” and you will know why I feel those years were a disaster.
I left that shop with a puffy mullet to make any Golden Girl proud.
A 12 year old that looked like she was at least 55.
My father was a fan of Country Western movies,
and he dreamed of us riding horses and shooting pheasants together with matching guns.
He’d offer to take me shopping ever so often, and I’d get excited forgetting there was one little catch:
It wouldn’t be at any place where the trendy girls went.
It would be at the Gunnysack shop where he would attempt to make me look the part.
This, my pre-teen years were like an episode of Little House on the Prairie if you gave Sophia Petrillo a cameo.
When I look back at photos I wonder how the mark was so far missed.
Where exactly had I gone wrong?
I had spoken my desires clearly.
I had not mispronounced words.
All I know is one day they will stand before the throne.
Jr. High was not the only dark time.
Let me just be clear.
The offenses dated way before that.
In one Olan Mills shot even Profile Me gazes at Front Facing Me, judging and
wondering who on earth would even have hair like that.
Moving on to high school I did not have my own car, so to get to school I had to borrow my dad’s truck.
But not any old truck, because that would be too discreet. No.
This was the big blue “Cow Cage” truck.
My dad was well known for inventions and animal transport, and one year when he had the need to move some cows from one location to the next.
He found himself lacking the proper trailer to do it, though, so he had designed and welded a giant cow cage that he fastened to the back of his truck.
But the cows had been transported.
The job, it was long done.
So I really did not see why that cage had to stay.
Imagine my joys pulling into the school lot, and over speed bumps, with a big rattling cow cage announcing my arrival.
A metal flag of defeat is what it was.
I can still hear my best friends’ laughter.
You see, 80’s and 90’s kids, we had real reasons to be embarrassed.
All you have to do is look back at our photos.
I have tried to tell my girls that they’ve got it so good these days, but apparently,
they just aren’t believing.
I have two daughters, ages nearly 12 and 14, who, as I’ve mentioned previously, are in the peak of their Mortified Stage.
Everything we do makes them supposedly just want to die,
and they tell us this somehow almost every day.
But, friends, I know embarrassment, and this is NOT it.
Kids these days have it so good.
Well, except for pandemics, distanced learning, raging wildfires, and floods, social distancing at the most crucial time for social development, and environmental disaster.
At least in this one area, they really do.
They should walk a day in some permed mullet shoes.
I’ve grown so tired of trying to defend myself to them in times when they’re embarrassed over some nonsensical thing that I’ve decided to just give in and let myself be swept by the waves.
Embrace it.
Essentially,
The water is full of sharks
and I’m going in.
This last week they got invited to the pumpkin patch with some friends.
A good distanced activity outdoors.
Another mom offered to drive and chaperone them, and since they had hardly eaten all day,
I grabbed them a quick dinner on the run, and went to the carpooling meet-up spot.
But it had already been a real long day full of them sighing at me, and rolling their eyes like I knew nothing at all.
It was like I had been primed for what would come next – What moms of pre-teens and teenage daughters love:
An opportunity to win anything at all.
No sooner had I turned into the parking lot where I was to leave them, than did I feel every synapse in that car connect like some sort of hormone supercomputer,
because those girls spotted a real cute teenage skater boy skateboarding by that waiting other mom’s car.
Immediately they both stopped eating their dinners, because –
What are they, SAVAGES?!
They CANNOT let a boy know they EAT.
I thought they had at least finished eating in secret before I let them out of the car and spoke to the other mom, but when I returned to my vehicle, I noticed they’d left their dinners in the car nearly whole.
I stood for a second looking at that food, feeling like it was a symbol of the things moms go through. Chauffeuring kids to do fun things while we often get no respect.
It was like I again was that little Grandma Perm Kid.
And, friends, you all know I’ve been training for these types of situations,
and on that night, my girls looked extra cute,
so I could not just drop them off near this strange boy I did not know and drive away.
I had to make a few things known.
So, from my van way across the parking lot,
with only that cute skater boy in between us,
I held up that full Taco Bell bag and did what any concerned about their nutrition and safety would:
I shook that bag over my head loudly like it was full of dog treats, and yelled,
“GIRLS! GIRLS! YOU DIDN’T FINISH YOUR DINNERS!
YOU NEED TO COME TAKE AT LEAST THREE MORE BITES!
LOOK AT THE AIRPLANE, GIRLS!
OPEN UP!
I CAN’T LET YOU HAVE ANY TREATS TONIGHT IF YOU DON’T EAT YOUR DINNERS!”
My 11 year old was out of that other van so fast you would have thought she was bionic.
She came running straight at and shooing me with both arms.
She was hissing, “STOOOOP. STOP. No. Shhhhhhhhh!”
But kids have to eat, right?
She wolfed it down there to shut me up.
You have never seen a person eat 4 pieces of a quesadilla so bitterly.
My 13 year old dove into the floorboard of the other van praying the boy did not see;
But he did, friends. He definitely did,
and with that –
My job was done.
They now know a little more about me.
Pretty sure next time they won’t leave dinners I’ve bought them just sitting on the van seat.
Pretty sure they realize mom knows and sees so much more than they realize.
Pretty sure they realize now I’ve got WAY more embarrassing things up my sleeve than just asking someone’s name or wearing comfy clothes in public, and pretty sure from now on they’ll stand in awe of what I’m capable of.
Don’t let that lacy Gunnysack mock-neck fool you.
“Checkmate, girls,” I thought as I drove away.
Looks like perm chemicals turned me into some kind of master.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
