Excuse Me, Sweetie? You Look Like A Stuffed Sausage.

Posted on June 18, 2012

My father used to enjoy taking me to the mall when I was a teenager only because he didn’t feel the need to keep his sarcastic comments to himself. “Look at all these teenyboppers,” he’d mutter just loud enough to for me to hear. “What is up with that hair?” It was the eighties and we did hair big back then. Well, other people did. I didn’t. I tried. Let’s just say I didn’t succeed. That and I couldn’t compete with the guys who followed the hair bands of the eighties, like Poison, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. How did my shaggy peers ever get laid back then? You couldn’t even see their face. And why am I bringing this up now? Because I’m continuing to go through some of my photo albums and am just amazed at how we all looked way back when.

Yes, I had a pair of parachute pants when I was junior high. I still have a picture of them somewhere (yes, I’m wearing them), only I haven’t come across it yet. I wore them to a Rick Springfield concert when Corey Hart opened. Everybody had them on. Ahhh… Good times and one of the few times I actually blended in. The deeper we got into the eighties, though, you either wore black or you wore colors. There wasn’t a whole lot of in between. The parents of a very good friend of mine, Karl Rorabacher, felt that any kid who wore black was not clean-cut. That annoyed me. They annoyed me. And that’s okay because they annoyed him, too. Therefore, I wore all black the first time I met them. I have no clue what the hell that proved, but it was fun.

Try as I might, I really couldn’t get into the whole black attire thing. My hair wouldn’t spike and that was almost kinda necessary if you were going to pull that one off. I always admired a few of the people I saw who did get their hair to act like a weapon of mass destruction. Good hair was important back then and mine just didn’t want to behave. Don’t call it karma. I was pretty well-behaved. I just misbehaved in different ways than most other kids did and I never wound up pregnant once. But I did embrace a bit of color and, God help me, suspenders. It may have been the Samantha Fox or Thompson Twins albums I was listening to at the time. Hey, I’ll blame anything.

Of course, we all looked the same during graduation. The guys did anyway, though there were differences in the colors of the ties we wore. Graduation pictures are one of the very few times you’ll ever see me wearing a real tie. That and my wedding. I don’t like ties. Never have. Never will. They’re constricting, they’re pointless and–in the business world–they only serve to see who can afford the most expensive one, which is akin to whipping it out and seeing who’s is bigger. Not that there’s anything wrong with wearing a tie. I’m just not impressed by it.

Although, I did find a nice use for a tie after watching Basic Instinct again one romantic evening. I got Ralph in bed, grabbed one of his ties and started to secure him to the bed.

“Is that my silk tie from Shanghai? You can’t use that one. No, not that one either. That was a gift from Grandma and they don’t make them anymore. Absolutely not! We bought that during our London trip and the store closed. Uh, uh. That’s Japanese. If you put a wrinkle in that Italian one, I’ll break every one of your DVDs into tiny little pieces! Don’t even think about touching the blue one. Did you wash your hands? Yes, I mean after your shower. I’m sure you touched something after it. Why on God’s green earth are you considering the yellow one from France? How many times have I… What… What are you doing? PUT THE DUCT TAPE AWAY!”

The fashion hasn’t really improved since the eighties, either. Have you seen the pictures of Wal-Mart shoppers people are posting? Skin tight isn’t a fashion when you look like a walking stuffed sausage. And just once, why we can’t have a realistic scene in a horror movie where the axe-wielding maniac is after some moron who doesn’t have his pants pulled up? Hello? Easy target.

So, that’s what’s on my mind today. How are you?

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Kristoffer Gair (who formerly wrote under the pseudonym Kage Alan) is the Detroit-based author of Honor Unbound, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell, several short stories featured in anthologies (to be combined in a forthcoming book), the recently re-published novella Falling Awake, its sequel, Falling Awake II: Revenant and Falling Awake III: Requiem.

4 Responses to “Excuse Me, Sweetie? You Look Like A Stuffed Sausage.”

Dorien says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:24 am
Ah, memories! Always a pleasure to step back with you in time.

Dorien

Reply
Kris says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:40 am
I’d gone horseback riding for the first time. Unfortunately, the saddle strap broke under the horse and I started to slide off. They told me if that ever happens to jump, otherwise you could wind up underneath the horse. So, I did that, but in doing so, landed on my arm in such a way that I broke the tiniest bone in my wrist. Had to graduate with a cast on.

On a plus note, it made a terrific volleyball spiker!

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Jeff says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:43 am
I have Babs running through my head now. Strange what reading your post will open inside.

Reply
Katherine T. says:
June 18, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Loved the 80′s. I was queen of the big hair back then. LOL! Love the parachute pant and suspenders. I had some of those, too. What were we thinking back then?! YIKES!