I've been watching a lot of Freaks and Geeks lately. I didn't have cable when it was on the air, and thanks to the magic of 21st century video streaming technology (ahem netflix) I've been catching up on what turns out to be a pretty fun show.
The show follows two groups of teens in high school. The geeks in their freshman year, and the freaks in what is probably a mix of grade 11s and 12s. It's painfully accurate at times (just substitute the Atari in their 1980 world for a Gamecube in mine).
Recently, I saw an episode where one of the geeks decides to "dress cool"...
...and it brought back a slew of repressed high school memories...
I grew up in Toronto, on Davisville Ave (east of Yonge, south of Eglinton, west of Bayview). Surrounded by the bully-spawn of the stepford wives, I lacked cable tv, social skills, and (naturally) friends.
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| fig 1 |
I liked to catch frogs (see fig 1), watch Monty Python, and read (le gasp!). This is not a good combo for a 7yr old who wants friends...
...Anyways, leather pants!
On Bayview there was a craptastic bar called "Originals", whose only real redeeming feature was a game room/ball room that parents could abandon their children in, while they drowned their upper-middle-class sorrows in shitty beer.
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| omg you guysh! SHKEE BAHLL! |
There was a disinterested teenage girl in too much makeup working the prize counter, where one could snag many a whoopie cushion and candy bag for only, say, 100000000000000 tickets.
Being an impressionable youth, I assumed that this pouty soon-to-be-teen-mom HAD to be cool, I mean, she worked in a GAME ROOM and could play arcade games ALL DAY. Pretty much the measure of success to a 13yr old...
Well, SHE had leather pants. You can see where this is going...? There are always people that kids look up to, hell, we think they're cool. Newsflash kids...THEY AREN'T. There are adults (and even teenagers who work in game rooms) that have terrible fashion sense, are very uncool, and can't parallel park to save their lives.
Shame on you grownups...misleading the children like that.
It was grade 9, I was in a new school, it was big, and the cafeteria smelt weird. ...I needed an edge. While wandering through the Eaton Centre (as dumb 14 year old do TO THIS DAY), I saw leather pants...and by leather, I mean pleather. EVEN BETTER.
Being the 90s, number 5 seemed like a good choice, what with its stylish boot cut. *shudder*
Now, in my mind, I would wear these to school and look like this:
But pleather pants make you feel like this:
So, naturally, I paired them with an oversize green crushed velvet sweater...complete with a zippered neck. Oh, did I mention that this sweater was from the local bookstore? Oh yea. Represent your literary dealer, fellow novel gangstas!
It was once I arrived to my band homeform (where I played tuba) that I realized...
So kids, all those horrible memories of shame and embarrassment? Yea, they'll plague you into your adult life...forever reminding you to never try anything different because you'll probably end up wearing pleather pants and a crushed velvet sweater...and you'll have to eat your lunch of fries and gravy alone and filled with regret.
But don't feel bad! You'll grow up, get rid of your teenage acne, kiss a few ladies and/or gents, and get blackout drunk a few times like all those cool folks in high school!
...then you'll get adult acne, grow old, have nightmares about pleather pants and die.
Sorry.
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