The '80s -- My Undignified Decade

You know what I hate? Memories of my adolescence. I mean, I'm sure there was a good time or two to be had in there somewhere, but in general, looking back on the time period between roughly 1980 and 1990 is painful. The problem with this decade-or-so interval in my life is that I was an imbecile. The worst of it all is that I really, truly thought I was cool.

I was reminded of how shameful the events of this decade were as my family and I were stuck in traffic on I-17 for an hour the other night. Have you listened to radio in Phoenix lately? Yeah, let me save you some time: you can have either spanish, christian or the 80s. We chose the '80s. As we suffered through the the Pretty in Pink soundtracks and the one-hit wonders and the glam rockers, I found myself reminiscing about this most despicable point in my life. Here's what stuck with me most:

1) Senior Prom. I decided to wear a spaghetti-strapped gown. I had never worn anything sleeveless, and found myself wondering what would happen to any perspiration that might accumulate in the underpit area. In my typically freakish way, I came up with a plan to outsmart the sweat. I would start layering deodorant upon deodorant early in the morning, so by the time my date picked me up at 6 p.m., I'd have an anti-perspirant shield that nothing could penetrate. The name of this game was 'variety.' I combined roll-ons, sprays and solids until my pits were invincible. The problem was that at about 6:30 p.m., just as my date and I were arriving at dinner, I could feel my pits tingling. I also started to smell a strange aroma. I quickly excused myself to the restroom to take a sniff. IT WAS MY PITS!! In creating the anti-sweat shield, I had apparently activated a chemical reaction that gave me the worst BO that I'd ever had, or ever smelled -- even on bums! Needless to say, the evening was cut short by my insisting that I had a tummy ache. I'm sure my date was glad to get rid of me. He probably had to get his car fumugated.

2) My Gross Boyfriend. You know the phrase "better to be alone for the right reasons than with someone for the wrong reasons?" Yeah, apparently I hadn't heard that one yet in 1984, when I got my first high school boyfriend. He was my "sure thing" -- a greasy, more-or-less illiterate, pimply jock. His good qualities were that he said "yes" to going with me. "Now I'm cool like the seniors," I praised myself. "I have a jock boyfriend." Meanwhile, I'm sure I was the laughing stock of Tolleson High. That guy was of Special Olympics-quality for sure. Most disgusting is the fact that he loooooooooooved hamburgers. He'd buy 2 or 3 of them every day (thus the pimples). One day, when making out by the lockers (PDA = cool), a juicy hamburger wod that had been making its home in between Molars #8 and 9 of my disgusting boyfriend was passed from his mouth to mine. It was so incredibly disgusting. Soooooooo disgusting. I eventually got it swallowed down. Then I dated him for another 2 years.

3) My "Drug Habit." Okay, this one is a stretch, because I never ever took drugs. But, I sure got some mileage out of pretending I did. This particular event happened around 1982. I had a seventh-grade crush on a kid named "Cody." I wrote his name EVERYWHERE -- on folders, desktops, bathroom mirrors, my hand. One day, my older sister (Julie -- the one who bullied me into the Sperry Top-Sider knock-offs) saw his name plastered all over my skin. "His name is Cody? You should call him Codeine," she said. "What is codeine?" I asked, naively. "A drug," she said. "A drug", I amused myself. "How cool is that." (I didn't realize that it was a legal drug used to treat headaches.) The next day, I plastered the words "I love Codeine" all over the grade school campus. My parents got a phone call that evening. Their suspicion never waned after that day.