As a kid in the eighties, I didn’t need much disposable income. I went to Catholic school—white shirt, plaid skirt—so fashion choices were limited. But youth finds a way. For me and my schoolmates, neon argyle socks were a crucial barometer of coolness. Hair ribbons, too, and they didn’t come cheap. Boxers needed to peek out just below our skirts, which were rolled up several inches at the waistband, so that we looked as though we were packing contraband anacondas. And of course there were the coveted weekend wine coolers; I was thirty before I stopped staring into my Chardonnay and snarling, “Where’s the fruit?”
To procure such items, I held many, many jobs. I am a great believer in jobs for teens. They teach important life lessons, build character, and inflict just the right amount of humiliation necessary for future success in the working world.
My first job had me miscast as a bubbly shopgirl; I was pathologically shy, and thus tended to replace human speech with excessive head gestures. It was like being waited on by Harpo Marx. Nod, nod, smile, head scratch, nod, honk-honk! I was soon fired.
Later, I wrapped and unwrapped foiled hams so that customers could insure the spiral cut was, indeed, spiral. For brevity’s sake, I’ll call this position Ham Girl. Being a Ham Girl was not as simple as it sounds, because when folks wait in line for forty minutes for the perfect holiday ham they become very, very sure that the lady or the two guys in front of them got the last great ham, and they take their anxiety out on you. Again, my inability to speak in social situations led me to employ the Harpo. “The spiral on this one’s a little thick, don’t you think?” Head shake, head shake, frown, pretend-to-care head shake. I’d leave work with my fingers covered in nicks and cuts, smelling of pork and potato salad and baked beans, trailing hungry dogs.
I worked, too, as a soda jerk at a fifties-style diner; then I was a grocery-store checkout girl with a uniform that involved a flouncy polyester scarf that made me look like a smart, fiftysomething administrative assistant.
But the most perfectly eighties job I ever had was at a mall, in my home town of Kansas City, Missouri, shilling frozen yogurt—which was, in 1987, blowing people’s minds. Yogurt? Frozen? In a waffle cone? Yes, or even a cup!
One morning, I arrived at work ready to sling some fro-yo. My manager asked to see me in the back. This felt ominous. In the dim light, I could make out a giant white orb and some crumpled black . . . pants? Had he killed someone? No, it was worse: a yogurt costume, bought at a flea market. The head—a.k.a. cone—was as big as a pilates ball, with the grim mouth of a madman, and, below that, the figure was wearing a tuxedo.
I have, ever since, pondered: Why the tuxedo? Where did the yogurt think he was going? Prom? I doubted that; he seemed older, somehow. A black-tie event? A wedding? My manager thought I’d be perfect in this costume, meaning that I was not assertive enough to decline the opportunity every sixteen-year-old girl dreams of: going out in public dressed as a formal dairy product. On went the tux, which smelled of stranger. On went the giant head; inside, a mini-fan began whirring away at my spiral perm, which buckets of hair product had hardened into a vast, frozen forest.
My manager handed me a tray of yogurt samples and threw me to the wolves—er, potential customers. My shyness once more barred me from contact with human beings. Children ran from me. I floated through the mall, a silent, slightly threatening spectre. I was on my way to becoming some grotesque urban legend: the Murderous Missouri Single-Dip Mall Man, who was jilted at the altar and spent his remaining days killing young shoppers on their way to get their ears pierced at Claire’s Fashion Jewelry and Accessories.
I was hot and woozy, the smell of Aussie hair mousse filling the cone along with my own carbon dioxide. Can’t breathe, can’t breathe! And then it happened. As I was steps away from safety, my yogurt samples dutifully dumped in a trash can, I felt a tug, heard a grr, and smelled smoke. A tendril of my lovely shellacked perm had been sucked into the fan. I now couldn’t take the giant head off my body—my hair was its prisoner. I wrestled and riled. Nothing. Lose the hair. I’d have to lose the hair. I yanked and felt the slow, sickening rip of my twenty-dollar Fantastic Sam’s investment. I was free. I looked in the mirror. This would require a gallon of gel and a very dependable scrunchie. Luckily, I had both.
And, to this day, I am always kind to people dressed as food. ♦
