Occasionally, I think I might be a better mother if I could get inside my teenagers’ heads and think like they do.
Of course, this is also a scary idea, especially after you’ve seen a certain number of movies based on scientific experiments that have gone wrong.
“The woman who got trapped inside her kid’s head” the trailer would boom as I rolled around in there bouncing from a pile of dirty clothing to an amorphous pit filled with obscene hip-hop lyrics.
I can only imagine feeling the hot flashes accompanying jolts of hormones and the extreme mortification involved in seeing or doing, well, nearly everything.
A small part of me thinks it would be nice to be a teenager again, with my whole life stretched out before me.
But then I realize that I’d have to give up so many things, like the memory of what pioneering life was like before iPhones, Velcro, personal computers, microwave ovens and even pantyhose.
You men won’t relate in the slightest, which is perhaps the reason pantyhose never made a list of top inventions of the 20th century.
But, believe me, to women they seemed virtually miraculous at the time – No More Garter Belts! Especially considering that, in those days, some of us were wearing miniskirts so short that we couldn’t even pick up a dropped pencil without flashing the entire known universe.
More than once, I remember dropping something, looking down at it, considering it, and then just walking on by. I didn’t need it that badly.
Hard to imagine, but pantyhose are now are in the process of becoming obsolete. Of course, they always were this very strange accessory – that you knew could be ruined instantly by a fingernail or a bump into a wall.
I didn’t even know they’d gone out of fashion until I demanded that my teenage daughter, Curly Girl, wear pantyhose with her silvery sandals under her prom dress. I made a special trip to the store to buy them.
“What ARE these things?” she demanded to know, making a sour lemon face as she took them out of the wrapper.
You would have thought I was trying to cram her into a corset or a bustle.
“They’re stockings,” I said, apparently providing her with a lesson in ancient history. “You need to wear them under your dress.”
“Why?” she demanded. “I’m not wearing these things,” and she stomped off to sulk.
I became incensed and looked for comfort, as I often do, from other mothers on my Frumpy Mom Facebook page, who certainly would understand the gaucherie of being bare-legged beneath a formal dress.
I was disappointed.
“No one wears pantyhose anymore,” was the general consensus I got when I tried to win sympathy on my Facebook page. “How is she going to show off her mani-pedi?”
What? When did that happen? I thought I was a hip and groovy mom who was on top of the latest trends. I took my kids to see Eminem and Rihanna at the Rose Bowl, for Pete’s sake.
How did I manage to miss the memo on pantyhose? I don’t know if this is only a California thing or not.
I suspect that in zip codes where it actually gets cold in the winter, stockings might not be so declasse.
Back when dinosaurs roamed Earth, I used to wear not one but two pairs under my dresses when I stood out shivering in the snow, waiting for the school bus in Clinton, Utah.
But, in those days, I’d really never even heard of a pedicure, nor did I know anyone who’d ever had one. And people weren’t wearing too many strappy sandals in the winter.
Oh, allow me to digress for one minute and tell you that I just got the first mani-pedi of my life. My daughter insisted we get one while we were on vacation in Sonoma County.
I’d always resisted, partly because I’m the daughter of a cattle rancher who thought such things were ridiculous, and also because I couldn’t imagine having some poor soul cleaning my feet, unless it was a religious ritual in church. Oh, and I’m terribly ticklish, too.
Let’s just say that I did it for my daughter, and I liked it. It probably won’t be 59 years until I do it again. I satisfied my dilemma over someone working on my feet by leaving a huge tip. The ticklish part – well, let’s just say I made everyone in the salon laugh.
But, then, that’s my job.
So, could I get into the head of a person who thinks mani-pedis are a necessary human right, like eating? And who can’t conceive of life before text messages? And who demanded, “Where’s the color?” the first time she saw a black-and-white television?
Well, maybe not. But, then, I’ll just keep my brain intact. Because, maybe someday I’ll once again need to know how to operate a fax machine.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
