Remember When, Episode 3

Remember when...

I was in junior high school.

I can say now that I had no earthly idea how much of a dork I was. All of the signs were there, staring me in the face, screaming "You're the biggest geek on the face of the earth!"
Yet somehow I missed those signs and thought I was normal, nay, cool.

Things that are true about me in junior high:

1) I had a spiral perm that never "took" in my bangs. So while the rest of my hair was a mass of fake curls, my poker-straight bangs were hanging down onto my glasses. Bringing me to point 2.
2) I had terribly thick, hideous plastic framed glasses. This did not bother me all that much, as they were necessary for point 3.
3) I would pull my glasses down to the tip of my nose, hike my pants up to nipple level, and do Steve Urkel impersonations. I would do these frequently, and in public.
4) I wore fluorescent clothing. Like, entirely fluorescent colored outfits, down to the socks and matching shoelaces. Want to know what else was brightly colored? See 5.
5) Remember those colored bands they used to put on braces? Yup. Had those. Black and orange in October, green and red in December. I'm fairly certain I used all of the colors. Except yellow. I may have lived a fashion impaired existence, but even I realized that yellow and teeth just don't go together.

It was a rough couple of years. Thank goodness I had my books and imaginary friends to see me through.

I wish I were joking about that.

Thankfully things started looking up for me in 8th grade. My braces were removed and I got contact lenses. I stopped doing Urkel impersonations and let my perm grow out. Also, I developed breasts and that went a long way toward acceptance from the opposite gender.
Still, junior high will go down as a time in my life that I would rather forget.

Unless of course, I bring it up on my blog to share with the world.

And by "world" I mean the sweet handful of folks who continue to read this because you're family, friends, or drawn to train wrecks.