Socks

Big hair was in, evidenced by the massive amounts of Aquanet stuck to the bathroom counter where I got ready for school every morning.  I liked doing my hair in our main bathroom because you could see the back of your hair perfectly, unlike in my bedroom where 2 largish mirrors hung in a corner. They created a mesmerizing domino affect when I sat at the desk/vanity/homework/mix tape making area and gazed upon my recently braces-free self. This could be distracting, and make me very late for school. I'd see how many copies of myself it would take before the far off image in the mirror didn't reflect a single freckle on my face, which meant that I had applied enough Cover Girl to hide them. In turn, getting ready could take hours. 

Now I get ready in 30 minutes or less if it's a hat day.

This could be because I'm 40 now and have accepted every freckle on my face, even grown to love them just a little. Also, I don't have an industrial sized can of aerosol hairspray on my bathroom counter ready to tease and sculpt my hair into shapes not found in nature. I'm sure the lack of that process alone speeds up my getting ready ritual by tons. Besides, the new gray hairs that I'm sporting these days probably wouldn't mind anyway.

Or, this could be because I simply have more things to do than spend hours in front of the mirror, most of which revolve around these 3 humans I lovingly refer to as my children. 

Or, because once I get my children off to school I'd rather crawl back into bed to read with nobody asking me questions.

Hello darkness my old friend...

Anyway, big hair was in.

So were Swatch watches, acid wash jeans and anything Esprit. Esprit made a pair of pointed toe leather flats with a sling back. I had a pair in white AND in black. I can't remember loving a pair of shoes more than I loved those sling backs. They were the perfect shoe. Paired with leggings and an over-sized shirt and it was instant couture - suburb style, according to me.

I needed over-sized and interesting shirts to go with the leggings/sling backs ensemble and my closet held limited quantities of these. I'd blown my school clothes budget on a smaller amount of more expensive clothes instead of making my dollar stretch and getting more things, like mom told me to do. If only we had Old Navy back in the day...

I was almost as tall as my mom and although most of her wardrobe consisted of all things I considered "momish," she had a few pieces that I coveted. My favorite was a rayon (yes, RAYON!) black shirt with white polka dots. Classic. And, I could wear either the white or the black pair of sling backs with it. Perfect. I loved that shirt. I wore it for my school picture in the 11th grade. Funny, I don't remember my mom ever wearing that shirt - she must've bought it just so I could borrow it. 

Katie wore out her favorite pair of boots recently. They're the fuzzy/suede/floppy kind that seem to have been on store shelves for the last 3 years. I can't tell you, as a mother, how much I love these boots if only because I don't have to tie them. On boot days, we fly out the door. They are worn here, there, everywhere and especially come in handy on swimming nights when the last thing I want to do is hang out in the ladies locker room waiting for my 10 year-old to tie her shoes.

Boots are convenient.

So there we were, at the local sporting goods store where we'd purchased her previous pair of boots, in the ladies shoe section. LADIES, not kids, not girls, LADIES. her beloved boots were no longer available in the kids section but the same boot was available in a LADIES/WOMENS size 6, which was close to her kids size 4. 

WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?

Sure, she'd been prancing around in my never-worn heels and other "fancy" shoes over Christmas vacation, telling me that my shoes fit her now, but I paid no attention. Kids do those kinds of things all the time. Now we were leaving the store with a bona fide ADULT pair of boots for my 4th grader. There are 2 things that bother me about this.

1. the price

and

2. THE PRICE

It's the same boot. 

Anyway, my daughter was happy. Her feet would again be cozy and dry on non-P.E. days at school and we could fly out the door quickly, just like before. No more waiting around the crowded locker room while she wrestled her wet feet into shoes and then hemmed and hawed about tying them. And the price, not such a bad thing when the very next day I received my quarterly "bonus" from said sporting goods store and it was a pretty nice chunk of change. In other words, I could buy myself some cute new socks for free (sorta).

Socks are always in high demand around here. My husband's entire day can be dependent on whether or not his favorite socks are clean, folded and in his sock drawer. His demeanor is determined by how many pairs of socks are there, hibernating among the boxer briefs, waiting for his bare feet. When the boys run out of socks (because their laundry hampers are maxed out and the air in their rooms becomes toxic), they head for Dad's sock drawer. And then he runs out of socks.  You can see where this is going...to an all out sock-laundry-fest in which I put on my hazmat suit (and gloves) to brave the hampers that live in my teenage boys rooms. If I'm not on my 2nd bottle glass of wine after spending the day locating, washing, matching and distributing socks, something is most definitely amiss.

She must have been taking notes this entire time. Observing the sacred sock ritual that takes place between the males of our house as they rotate socks.  As if on cue, the day she turned 10 she started asking if she could borrow my socks.  I was flattered.  It was touching.  My socks are cool enough for her to want to borrow and wow, our feet are close enough to the same size that this can actually happen?  Okay!  Sure, borrow away.  Nobody has ever wanted to borrow my socks before. 

Turns out, my socks are as cool as my mom's black rayon shirt with the white polka dots was in 1989.

Suddenly, I have no socks.  I reach in among the bras and baby teeth (I have got to find a better place to keep those, why am I keeping those? Gross.) to find some fun socks to wear and...nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch.  My socks are now living in my daughter's hamper, or on her floor, or under her bed, or perhaps in a backpack or the box that her Rainbow Loom came in. 

Is nothing sacred?