Sunday, April 30, 2006

Easter basketcase



I volunteered to watch the 3-year-olds at church on Easter, not because I know squat about kids, but because I was all about the unofficial fashion show.

Kids on any normal day? Shrug. I could take ‘em or leave ‘em (the latter usually occurs alongside a shrill scream – mine or theirs). But Easter is the one day still preserved for frilly dresses, parades of pink, patent leather and floppy hats. The church halls are a runway, and if you’ve got a good seat, you might even spot a lacy bonnet or a satin bow.

On kids, of course. Even sporting a fully primped toddler, most parents I saw dragged through Easter wearing jeans, sneakers and a disheveled look that expressed exactly how delightful it was to get little Karli in those white tights.

My class was flowering with girly girls, including one named Dakota or Takoma or Toyota or something like that, who carried an antique beaded clasp clutch (destroyed in the Play-Doh after 12 seconds).

The kids were supposed to wear name tags. But it felt criminal disrupting those precious ensembles with a sticky “Hi, my name is” written in dull crayon.

And anyway, I’m fundamentally opposed to name tags. I never know where to stick them.

Above the breast? My shirts are often too low-cut. Below the breast is basically my waist. And on the bull’s eye itself, the tag peels up at the edges if I don’t constantly re-smash it, which requires an awkward amount of public self-groping.

Oh, and don’t you dare give me a name tag with a pin. You’ve got a better chance of me sticking it through my eye than my chenille.

Speaking of name tags, my friend recently met a guy wearing a Sean Jean shirt and asked if that was his name. Later, she met a guy wearing G-Unit polo, and she asked if his shirt meant “gun it,” like when you hit the gas pedal, or if it was something French. You know “Gunet,” sort of like “Monet.”

Photo by Flickr user cory.cousins.