Bad Hair AND Bad Socks Day
This series has somehow expanded from Bad Hair photos to Embarrassing In Every Way photos. You can thank me later.
I know you’re wondering which person in this picture is me. I’m the one on the right who apparently hasn’t had a haircut in three or four months, who carefully matched her socks to her t-shirt, and who looks suspiciously like a fourth grade boy.
Oh, and I also have my name emblazoned in giant letters across my chest.
If your name happens to be Jennifer or Heather or Stephanie, you might think that shirt is excessive. But if you have a name like mine and you were a youngster before the digital age, you understand why it was HUGELY exciting when my mother came home from shopping in the big city and presented me with a personalized! shirt! It was the very first time I’d ever owned anything with my name pre-printed on it.
Unfortunately the shirt also provides undeniable evidence that that’s really me in those knee-high sweat socks. Why I didn’t take my cues from my best friend (cute, feathered hair; fashionable baseball shirt; form-fitting short shorts; footie socks), I’m not sure. I’ve always been an independent sort.
I would have DIED to have a shirt like that when I was little.
(and confession: I STILL look for my name on coffee mugs, keychains, etc.)
I also suffered from the nothing with my name on it syndrome. My grandma would buy pencils from Lillian Vernon and have my name put on it.
My mom would never let me get a shirt with
my name on it because (and you will know this to be true because you’ve met my mom) she was afraid that a KIDNAPPER … In Hoquiam, WA pop. 6,000 … would see me in the shirt, shout out my name and then I would turn my head. And then when he went to kidnap me later, people would think “he can’t be kidnapping her, he called her name out earlier and she turned her head so she must know him.”
Remind me someday to tell you about the secret code word we had to memorize in case she was ever in an accident and someone said they were picking us up for her …
OOOH, a code word!
I kind of love Lillian Vernon.
And I never thought about the kidnapping scenario. Possibly because anyone who didn’t know me would mispronounce my name anyway.
I love this photo and the theme. Reminds me of two fashion flops (of many more of course). The first is the white Chevron gas station attendent outfit I got at Sears and wore in 3rd and 4th grades – what??? Dress for success, I guess? Then there’s the great picture of me in my “I’m with stupid” shirt, which while the arrow pointed at my brother, I’m the one with the bad perm, braces, idiotic grin and an open fly. I’ll have to dig that one up…