Something about you. Can’t put your finger on it.
You spend hours in your room, staring in the mirror.
Is your nose growing and you can’t see it? Is your face crooked? Do you just have one eye, in the middle of your face?
How come pimples suddenly appear on your face, especially on Monday morning when you’re on the bus going to school?
Why do all the girls you like wouldn’t be caught dead with you and all the girls you don’t like would love to.
Something’s off.
You could swear up and down that have a personality – a pleasant one, you’ll freely admit.
Maybe you look desperate or worse; creepy.
You’ve asked your friends – they’d never give you straight answers.
Your parents aren’t any judges – they both tell you it’s your hair.
If you cut it off you’d have no personality – you’d look like Winston Churchill or a Bowling Ball with ears.
You hang out on Fairfax – hang out on the Strip – hang out at Station 8 – hang out at the Merry-go-Round at Griffith Park for Sunday Love ins, eating Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches.
Couple times you even went to the Krishna Temple for Sunday feasts. Got food poisoning.
Face it – sixteen sucks.
You just aren’t cool. You look too interested all the time. Friends tell you you look like a wall going at ninety miles an hour.
You give off desperate vibes.
They tell you girls are afraid you’ll crawl all over them like a blanket full of fleas.
You look like a bad kisser. You look like you drool.
You don’t have your learners permit. You bag groceries. You would take a bus for dates.
You haven’t been on a date since you were twelve.
You haven’t had a girlfriend since . . .ever?
You just look like you don’t know what you’re doing.
Nobody wants anybody who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
You’ve read magazines – you’ve seen films. Everybody seems desperate. So why can’t you?
‘Cause life ain’t like magazines – and it doesn’t look like films – like the grainy ones you found in the garage that your dad never talks about.
Doesn’t look like Sears Catalogs either. You never got a rise out of training bras.
A doctor would call what you have Personality Disorder.
Swell – spend your life as an exhibit for the disappointed.
You’re a whole heap of sorry for yourself.
Begrudgingly get ready for work – sale on Chicken, don’t bruise the fruit.
Shirt fits a monolith; not you – Daylight Market.
Smiling Sun logo – on you, looks like Mister Kobiyashi on a bad day.
Take the bus to La Cienega.
Make your way through the parking lot to the entrance.
Met with a card table full of Girl Scouts, hawking cookies loudly.
They harass customers. Den Mother sits, casually observing, listening to a transistor radio.
A Platoon of green uniforms and merit badges, racing around the store; high voltage and pleading.
But there’s the older one who stands behind the table, looking non-plussed and polite.
She looks at you and gives a faint smile – you feel electric shocks.
She has eyes that pierce through concrete. She’s in tenth grade.
She nonchalantly points to the choices; Shortbread, Mint and Peanut Butter Sandwich.
Buck a box. You got paid the day before.
In a trance, you pull out a ten dollar bill and tell her you’ll take ten.
She breaks into a wide smile – a mouth full of braces.
You don’t care, you’re under her spell.
For a nanosecond, the thought of getting your tongue caught in her mouth is scary.
She makes small talk. You haven’t paid this much attention since the last episode of The Fugitive.
It’s like you’ve known her your entire life. She even finishes sentences you’ve started.
You have to work – she has to sell cookies.
You put on your store apron and assume the position at check-out.
You exchange glances for the rest of your shift.
She becomes animated – you become animated – looks like a mating ritual.
Den Mother notices – glances back and forth like a tennis match.
After a few hours fly by, the cookie harassment is over. Girl Scouts pack up.
You feel a rush of disappointment. Customer in the checkout line glares at you for being frozen. Cashier snaps her fingers at you to come back to earth.
Girl comes over to you – good for a pulse jump.
She tells you they ran out of cookies and she’ll deliver your ten boxes to you. What’s your address?
She’s coming to your house?
You blurt out your address so fast you trip over your own words.
You finally make sense. She folds the note and smiles. She’ll see you tomorrow and waves.
The spell has been broken – you are no longer the common cold or last weeks laundry. Somebody likes you – they actually like you.
So when the doorbell rings the next day, you stop yourself from tackling the front door to being cool and casual and taking deep breaths.
You open the door.
It’s the Den Mother with a shopping bag full of Girl Scout Cookie boxes.
She hands them to you, saying her daughter is busy with softball practice.
She also advises you not to get any ideas. She doesn’t date and she’s thirteen.
Thirteen? She’s bright for her age – she skipped. She just looks older.
You understand, don’t you?
You hear a loud thud – it’s your jaw dropping to the floor.
You close the front door and stare at the bag of cookies. No idea what to do with them.
You drag your feet and your punctured ego back to your room and shut the door.
You were happy – you were excited – you had a personality, even if it was for a few hours.
Something to look forward to . . . .someday.
Maybe.
And for a reminder of how awkward your Summer may have been, here’s 45 minutes worth of KFWB and KHJ for the Summer of 1967 from B. Mitchel Reed and The Real Don Steele.
Pardon us while we hound and beg:
