I don’t know when it happened that I got so old… but there are times that events remind me that I am starting to think and act like an old guy and that I am just not a kid any longer. Case in point was this past Friday. I was in Dallas for a trade show, and the last day of the show, most of the people from the event checked out and left, but we did not have a flight out until Saturday. Thanks to that, while we were closing up our booth, our hotel transformed while we were gone.
Gone were the show attendees, and in came many, many (I mean MANY) kids (and some families) from the University of Texas (Hook ‘Em Horns) and the Oklahoma University (Boomer Sooner). Awash in a sea of Orange (Texas) and Red (Oklahoma), I watched somewhat amused at first seeing this group of kids acting like a bunch of country bumpkins in the “big city” (Side Note: Being from the NY area, I guess I have much higher expectations of what to find in “The City” and Dallas was sorely lacking in this regard).
But as night fell, my amusement shifted a bit. As I watched them get dressed up and head out for a night on the town, my amusement changed to somewhere between disbelief or dismay. I watched as normal young girls turned into Bratz Dolls. I say that because, it was so stunning that I couldn’t believe it was real, it was more like a campy 80′s comedy sort of slutty, trashy look that was so far over the top that it was almost (I said almost) comical. As I saw one walk out of the hotel to meet with her friends wearing 4″ (or better) clear platform shoes, I couldn’t help but utter to my parter, “When did this turn into hookers on parade?”
And then I thought about my little princess. And a cold chill ran down my spine. ”Oh, hell no,” I said to nobody in particular. She is not going to be anywhere near something like this. I am locking her up and bringing in tutors. Perhaps I should take her to see Tangled when it comes out this fall… this way she has an idea of how long I expect her to be locked up.
I went to college in the 80′s during the era of Madonna, and mini-skits, and falling of the body oversized sweatshirts, and still by our standards, “these kids today” seem to be out there. I don’t know. Am I just getting old? Are you afraid of what it is going to be like “out there” when your kids are ready to strike out on their own?
