Death of the Dickie

I stopped wearing dickies shortly after my friend told me I should "stop being so uptight." She complained that I always wore headbands, dickies, and stirrup pants. My response to her was "why don't you stop being so stupid and needing tutorials before school?" This is, I hope, the meanest thing I have ever said to someone. When you are a nerdy girl with braces, scoliosis, dickies, stirrup pants, and headbands, the only thing you have in your arsenal to throw into someone's face is that you make A's. So public apology to this person for being such a meanie. Also, a public thank you for getting me out of a fashion trend that needed to die.

My fashions did not improve based on this argument ; they just changed. I specifically remember shopping for school clothes before starting junior high. My sister always wanted name brand stuff. Since we would get to spend the same amount of money, she would end up with a few pair of Girbaud or Z Cavaricci jeans and some Converse. I would end up with about 400 new items from K-Mart. To me it is quantity over quality. To this day I prefer it this way. If anyone ever needs a Christmas gift idea for me, get me 25 things out of the dollar bin at Michaels. It will be the best gift ever.

Back to clothes. This particular school year rolled around and I was super pumped up to go shopping at K-Mart. I was throwing rompers and skorts in the basket like a crazy looter. I remember standing in the mirror looking at myself in a long sleeve denim shirt, a pair of denim shorts, and a pair of hiking boots thinking "yep, this is definitely a contender for the first day of school."

Nothing highlights the fact that you have scoliosis like a skort. A skort is the mullet of fashion. It is a party in the front and casual in the back. From the front you may have not noticed that my right hip was a couple inches higher than my left. From the back....not so much.

I think in high school things started to turn around for me. I had a better time dressing myself. From high school on, it seems people actually like my clothes. The only problem is I cannot take a compliment. If anyone ever says they like something I have on, I tell them how cheap it is and how I got it at Target "a 100 years ago." If anyone ever tells me they like my hair, I will tell them it is dirty. I must learn to just say "thank you" and leave it at that.

Wind Suits and Dickies

As a child, I had these neighbors that were the coolest people ever. While my parents were listening to Doug Stone, these neighbors P&D we will call them, were listening to the Beatles, CSNY, and the Counting Crows. They drank long island iced teas while jamming to Pink Floyd. This made them completely awesome. I remember one time P&D got me a wind suit for my birthday. This wind suit was so beautiful, I thought. I actually went to get it tailored. Yes, you read this correctly. I got a wind suit tailored. Getting a wind suit tailored should tell you two things about me: A) I was that tall and skinny that a wind suit was noticeably ill fitting enough to get it tailored and B) I cared that much about a wind suit to put forth the effort to take it to a tailor. Granted I was probably in fifth grade, so there was a parent enabling me by driving me to Dunlaps to get this done. It is still completely and utterly ridiculous that I would wear this wind suit along with a turtleneck to a school dance. A wind suit is totally appropriate for certain situations. Now I can see, a school dance is not one of those situations.

Turtlenecks were so cumbersome. This was probably one of the few times I went for the full turtleneck. Most of the time, and by most of the time I mean practically every day between October and March, I sported a dickie. A dickie, for those of you who are unaware, is a mock turtleneck. It has the same great style and flare as a turtleneck but not the bother of the oh so obtrusive sleeves. It is just a neck piece really. I had one in every color. The best part about my dickie collection was that it was not just me who wore them. My entire family was proud to sport a dickie. I don’t mean that we were the family that all wore dickies in our family picture. Heavens no. We were too cheap to buy that many matching dickies. We just shared. Mom, dad, sister, and myself all shared the same green dickie and at Christmas time this became a difficult task. So many flashy Christmas sweaters that would benefit from the addition of a dickie. We made due. I finally gave up the dickie…that is a story for another day.