By Kelly Kazek
I was driving along, minding my own business.
I wasn’t looking for trouble, really I wasn’t.
But the site of a small, yellow, diamond-shaped sign with three little words nearly made me run off the road.
Baby on Board.
Innocent-seeming words, perhaps, but frightening in their cuteness to anyone who lived through the 1980s once and would rather run her fingers through some guy’s Jheri curl than live through them again.
But that sickeningly adorable Baby on Board sign was a wakeup call as loud as any Frankie Say Relax T-shirt. It was at that moment I wondered if it was really middle-aged “mommy brain” that made me wear two different earrings to the Chamber of Commerce coffee that morning or if I was actually channeling my inner Cyndi Lauper.
My subconcious was trying to alert me to the meaning behind sights I’d been repressing.
When my teenage daughter came home wearing feather earrings recently I found them more reminiscent of a cool “Half Breed”-era Cher than an androgenous, “Goody Two Shoes” Adam Ant or worse, a hair-metal band fan.
And when I saw girls wearing skin-tight leggings under dresses, I just told myself they must be cold.
At the beach this summer, when Shannon’s hair turned orangish from a run in with Sun In, no warning bells went off.
Even when Shannon walked in from back-to-school shopping and proudly displayed her new jeans, I was able to somehow slip into Sybil mode to block the knowledge they were peg-legged, acid-washed and ripped at both knees.
I hear post traumatic stress can do that to a person.
Now that I know ‘80s fashions really are back, I awake sweating from nightmares in which I am wearing Alexis Carrington shoulder pads, facing a fully padded Brett Favre and telling him, “See, fashion can come out of retirement, too.” And then suddenly, Brett’s wearing a white jacket with the sleeves pushed up over a pink T-shirt and I am leaning over to rub his perfectly trimmed 5-o’clock shadow …
Wait. What was this column about again?
Any-hoo, the gist of things is that it’s time I had The Big Talk with my daughter.
Not THAT talk.
The one I really dread. The one where I show her pictures of myself in high school in the 1980s and warn her of the dangers of pop collars, jelly shoes and massive hair bows. I’ll warn her she will, once she awakens from the fashion nightmare that has taken hold, be forced to burn her high shool yearbooks and any stray prom photos. Abstinance, I’ll tell her, is best.
But if she can’t control her urges, I feel it’s my duty as a mother to remind her that people who wear skin-tight leggings should probably go ahead and buy themselves some leg warmers and order a Jazzercise tape, or at the very least sign up for Richard Simmons’ Deal-A-Meal program.
Otherwise, they better hope those totally awesome parachute pants also make a comback because they can really hide some thunder thighs.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
