The Wife, my friend Bob and I decided that Saturday after dinner we’d go to an Irish saloon we used to spend quite a bit of time at, but hadn’t in a while. Good food (although we weren’t eating that night), good drink, nice atmosphere, really one of the better pubs of it’s type around here.
We went in and found the TV’s all featuring some guys boxing, or the Bulls getting massacred at Detroit. Neither one of them being much interest to me, and we were there to talk anyway. Maybe 40 people were in the place, a nice mix of what looked like the crowd the place always draws – some 20-ish folks, a few older couples, car salesmen talking over how they moved that last Yukon on the lot (High-Five Duane!!) There’s a DJ, dressed in full bad “I’m a DJ, I get to dress like a stooped doofus in my spiked Flock of Seagulls hair and my black shirt with rhinestones spelling out something no one wants to read anyway” regalia. He’s playing normal, respectable bar stuff at a respectable volume, and pretty soon Bob starts a talk with our waiter, a fine young guy named Brett or Brent or whatever. Nice kid.
Shortly, Brett (I decided on that) says that pretty soon there’s going to be twenty-one 60 year old women coming in. Wait, sorry, reverse that. 60, twenty-one year olds. That’s better. Within seconds, I sense a wafting on the air. Much like if the entire Macy’s perfume counter was walking in. I turn to the door and see, outside of the door – A SCHOOL BUS. (I KNOW!!! Imagine the irony, and me, the Bus Guy). Soon, we’re in full invasion mode. Soon after this, the music becomes really f-ing loud.
And that’s when I really start to notice these young ladies, these paragons of our future, these women who are on the frontier of hip-fashion, in fact the very fashionistas of our world.
They dress like idiots.
Now, do not get me wrong. I am in fact, many of you know, the parent of a 21 year old female. We call her ‘daughter’. A good kid, but clearly NOT the fashion barrier breaker these girls were. Nor, apparently are her many and varied friends who I know fairly well. In fact one of the first things I did was to run outside, call the Child on her cell phone, where she answered, from (God I love my kid, she makes me proud, following in Daddy’s footsteps like this…) inside a bar at her own college with her friends. I described the scene, the dress, the style of dance….
I’m sorry. Did I accidentally use ‘style’ and ‘dance’ in the same sentence with regard to these girls? Perhaps ‘spasm’, or ‘cleverly disguised indifference to the basics of rhythm’, or ‘standing about in small circles, talking over the music and occasionally raising their arms, yelling “whoooooo!” and shaking their butts’, or ‘a loose karaoke thing whereby they all sing only the choruses to songs they like’.
But not really dancing. Hey, just because I CAN’T dance (I can’t jump either, I fit all the molds) doesn’t mean I don’t know it when I see it, right? Besides which, there was a very attractive, I’d guess mid 20-ish woman in actual clothing dancing in plain sight next to her date while standing by the bar, so comparisons were there to be had.
In case the Wife reads this, this is a disclaimer that I only NOTICED and did not linger upon said attractive woman in the white dress, NOR her friend in the tight black tank top with the cute pink short ruffley skirt. In fact, I couldn’t even swear that either of them existed, the white dress being a shoulder length blonde, and the tank top/skirt being a longer, straighter dark brunette. In fact, as I reflect, I am virtually certain that I imagined that thing where she took the front of her dress, lifted and swooshed it to and fro. And the part where the pink skirt turned and blatantly, and in a sexually suggestive manner, shook what I believe she calls her “groove thing”, and in case if she doesn’t call it that I will.
Anyway, I digress. Someone younger and hipper than I explain to me this look that involves wearing a long, tank-top/dress length thing (I’m unclear if it’s a dress or just a really long shirt), with jeans underneath. Don’t say “It’s a shirt you clueless old doofus, so what, you wear jeans…”, because NO – these were dresses. Mid thigh long, and with ruffle-y bottoms. OR, that look, only with up to 4-5 other layers of top on top, so that you could spot: bra strap, strap from the camisole, strap from the little midriff things I’m wearing OVER the top of the dress thing, and perhaps more things to wear in case you feel strap-deprived.
Seriously I counted on one girl, eight different layers. Denim skirt, leggings underneath, and six (yup, 6) different colored straps on her shoulders from the above mentioned things.
At least 3 other girls were in full Britney meets Angus Young mode, with the schoolboy outfit and cap. Later we found out this was a sorority outing, though we didn’t ask from which school. So, wouldn’t you double check with your sisters that it was or wasn’t your night to dress like Angus? Also, check that website out, that’s their sorority. See the girls on the front page? NONE of the Alpha Phi’s we saw were dressed like that.
Later a second bus came. This one was about 70/30% girls, but included guys. I can only assume this was some sort of official night out. So, the dates? In gym shorts and t-shirts. Well, ok some of them. Some of the others were K-Fed wannabees, which raises the question: Who wanns-a-bee him?
We saw the Child Sunday morning, during which we described more of the night. I raised the question: “So, child of mine. You and your friends go to a bar, perhaps as part of a semi-outing-ish kind of night, I can accept that you dress a bit, but what’s your behavior? Are you there to stand on the dancefloor and talk, to parade about waiting for the DJ to play “Whole Lotta Rosie” so you can air-guitar, or what?”
Geez dad, I go to a bar to drink.
I love my kid, she’s apparently from this planet.
Sidenote: Yes, I appreciate that they DID have the sense to hire transportation for their night out. Poor yellow school buses get lonely on weekend nights after all.
