Okay, so it was picture day in second grade. And I wasn't happy. Why? I'm not sure, but it probably revolved around my insatiable need for attention. Anyhow, I decided that the reason I was so unhappy on this, the second grade picture day, is that one year before, on first grade picture day, my dog died. That much was true. So I decided that on the anniversary of picture day, I would be very solemn indeed.
My mom was unaware that I was having a private day of remorse but knew that it was picture day. Like any good mom, she dressed me in what must of been my best clothing at the time. Unfortunately that consisted of a cream colored mock turtleneck and a brown and blue hued, cross-stitched teddy bear vest. As in...there were teddy bears. On my vest. And because it was faux cross-stitch, they were highly pixelated.
A vest alone is bad enough. But, if it helps, the bears on the vest were also wearing vests.
And top hats.
I remember working on my sadness pretty early on in the school day so people would ask me "what's the matter?" and I could say "nothing." Then when really probed, I could tell the story of my dear sweet Duke's last hours on earth.
When we finally got to the pictures, I remember there being a mirror available to check for stray bits of lunch in your teeth. But I knew I wouldn't be needing teeth. I was sad. And despite repeated prodding from the photographer, I pouted in my pictures. Either no one in the family wanted the resulting pictures, or my mom ordered extra shots due to their hilarious nature--but out there, somewhere, is a photograph of young me in a teddy bear vest (of bears wearing vests) and a mock turtleneck t-shirt frowning in memoriam of Duke.
Anyway, what horrible outfits did you wear as a child? Did you have any fabulous picture day antics?
5 comments:
When I was a child (K-2nd, I remember having recess at the upper playground), my mom either offered or agreed to use her sewing skills to make me a pair of pants. The thing that made these pants great was that I got to help "design" them. That means I got say I wanted them to be puffy hammer pants (it was about 1990) and I got to go to the fabric store and pick out the loudest most garish cacophony of neon dots and zigzags I could find. When the pants were finished, elastic secured to the waist and ankles, my mom asked what they should be called. Since they were a team effort by Logan and Carla, I named them LoCa, which she lovingly stitched onto a rectangular label on the waistband. I loved these pants.
I don't remember any particularly horrendous outfits. My memory is of the "mommy-cut" bangs. Oh yes, every evening before picture day, my mother would cut my bangs. However, the straight across always ended up with a diagonal line of bangs with one side much shorter than the other. The only comfort is that almost every other girl sported the same mommy-cuts in her picture!
Ugh, those bangs! The night before Picture Day, my mom would cut my bangs. She would hold my bangs down to my forehead, so that she could cut them in a straight line. Somehow, she NEVER remembered that I had been born with a huge cowlick on one side. So, of course when the bangs dried, one side would be two inches higher than the other. In my fifth grade pictures, it looked like my forehead had been constructed from Legos. In a stair pattern. I'm still upset.
Oh, man. Now I really, really want to see your and Logan's respective pictures.
At the moment, I can't recall any specific fashion goodness from my school pictures, other than what is known in my family as The Year of the Bangs. Over the summer my mom had, after much begging on our parts, given home perms to my sisters and myself. They didn't take, except for our bangs, where the results were both shocking and very nearly permanent, as the evidence from that year's school photos, taken nearly three months later, clearly shows. Think French poodle, but just in the bangs.
I've also always hated my seventh grade picture. That year you had your picture taken during whichever period you had English. My English class was right after gym, and that was the day we ran the mile, which I did on an empty stomach because I'd forgotten my lunch and you can see every bit of that in my face. Good times.
I too had a vest "embroidered" with teddy bears. Horrifying. I even had a matching braided "leather" belt. Yikes.
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