I really wanted her to love Lloyd Dobler

I love forcing my kids to watch old 80's movies with me. I really just want them to love the movies as much as I did when I was growing up.

OK, honestly, I don't have to force them that hard. They have liked everything I've made them watch so far, except Heathers. They didn't get it. In their defense, it is a pretty freaking weird movie. Weirdly AWESOME, that is. Though rather violent...

Anyway, I love Lloyd Dobler, he was always my favorite. I was trying so hard to find Say Anything the other day so I could show my kids how great it was. I really wanted Megan to love Lloyd Dobler as much as I do. I was so mad because I couldn't find it on any of the movie things! Nexflix, Hulu, iTunes - it was nowhere to be found! Isn't that ridiculous?

Speaking of 80's movie crushes, I also love(d) Duckie.  I so would have picked him if I were Andi (the girl in Pretty in Pink).  I know not everyone is with me on that, but it's no secret that I've always been into the quirky guys. I always thought he was so cute.  My absolute favorite part of that movie is when Duckie comes sliding into the music store and starts lip syncing Try a Little Tenderness. Aw. Everytime I watch that clip it makes me miss the 80's. Except the heavily hair sprayed hair for girls part. That look never really worked for me.

Back to Lloyd Dobler.  Seriously. What girl would be able to resist that cutie? You know, the whole boombox, professing your love, sweet adorable guy in a trench coat thing? Who could resist that?? 

Ah the 80's...  if we're talking about movies that made the whole decade (actually we might have been talking about boys, but that's neither here nor there) (BTW, I've never said 'that's neither here nor there' in my life), we'd have to throw in the Breakfast Club. I so love that movie. To this day I will watch it any time it comes on. Though I have to admit, I was never a fan of Judd Nelson. He has really big nose holes and they always sort of scared me. I do think he's a good actor though.

Speaking of the Breakfast Club, I just saw Anthony Michael Hall in a commercial for cell phones or something. Did you guys see that? He looked like a grown man. Which I suppose is normal, when you're in your 40's or something. But still, it's hard to not think of him as his nerdy teenaged self.

Oh yeah, Sixteen Candles!  Back in the day when there was no google, I remember trying to figure out who Jake Ryan was in real life.  Where the heck was the information highway when I needed it??  What an attractive guy. What a great movie.  Take note, if you're watching the movie with your kids, there is straight-up nakedness in there that I completely forgot about. I was reminded when I saw a very naked shower scene while I was watching the movie with two little girls on the couch beside me. So that was a shocking turn of events. Anyway, remember The Donger?  Hahaha.  I admit freely that I still quote that movie, and it came out like, forever ago.

Back to the Future, The Goonies, Footloose, Better Off Dead, The Karate Kid, Ferris Bueller, Dirty Dancing...  I'm not sure if this generation of kids is going to have such a group of defining movies to look back on when that grow up. Which is exactly why I try to bribe my kids into watching 80's movies with me every so often. 

I strongly believe that it's my duty as a parent to expose my kids to such greatness. What movies do you watch with your kids?

Things I did as a kid that a modern day mom would lose her shit over

Every now and then (usually when I feel like drinking a TAB and locking my kids outside for a few hours) I think back to how much simpler it seemed when I was little. It just seemed like the worries and stresses were so much less, things were easier and parents didn't get all up in your junk for every little thing you did. Kids were allowed to be kids. Silly, crazy, energetic, curious little hooligans.

I wonder if every generation thinks they had it better, in some capacity. But crap guys, I might actually sound like my Nan when she used to scold us and say, "In my day..." Back then, I thought she was just old and cranky and lame. Sorry Nan.

Well anyway, in MY day,

We could go out to play after breakfast and come back when the street lights turned on. Jeez, when I was a little kid (I'm talking elementary school age), this was totally the norm, and we didn't have cell phones. We were not in constant contact with our parents. The rule was that we had to go home by the time either the church bell rang (6 pm), or when the street lights came on. So basically Mom had zero clue as to where we were all day. Usually she'd ask the mailman at some point if he had seen us, and he'd tell her where we were last spotted. We did have to stay in the neighborhood though. We'd be out in the woods, (with Swiss army knives no less) cutting shit to make forts and stuff. As I recall, we also attempted to crawl through the culverts to the other side of the street as often as we could. We never did make it the whole way... THAT'S SO DANGEROUS GUYS! In my wildest dreams I can't imagine not knowing where my kids are for an entire day. Or not flipping out if I found them scurrying like rats through a filthy, grimy underground culvert pipe, MOM.

I would ride my bike to the grocery store. Sometimes even alone. The grocery store in our town was a little less than a mile from where I lived. Often times Mom would ask one of us to ride our bike to the store for milk or paper towels or something. Nine times out of ten she would give us like $2 for $5 worth of stuff. It was always so embarrassing. But yeah, we'd pedal our little selves to the store WITH NO HELMET, park our bikes and go inside and attempt to buy 5 bucks worth of stuff with two dollars. 

We walked to the candy store by ourselves. The candy store was just about as far away as the grocery store, and we were totally allowed to walk there whenever we had scavenged enough money to get a baggie filled with goodies. I remember actually being shorter than the snowbanks, walking alone with a handful of change in my mitten. Oof, anything for penny candy. What was my mom thinking??

We would walk to school. God forbid. When I make my kids walk to school I am looked at as the mean mom. Which is absolutely ridiculous. Most kids have legs, so it really shouldn't be a hardship for kids to use them for all of 9/10 of a mile. My mom RARELY drove us to school. We had to walk. Every day. Rain or shine or snow (or lugging along a freaking heavy-assed tuba-like instrument). There were no parents dropping their kids off and picking them up after school. Kids were encouraged to actually walk or ride their bikes and get exercise and breathe fresh air. Go figure.

We rolled down grassy hills and played in the woods (omg ticks). These days I have a mild panic attack if one of my kids rolls down a hill or plays around in the woods. Isn't that so sad?? We live in deer tick country, and I am super paranoid about Lyme Disease. It's a real issue around here. When we were kids, that threat was a non-issue. There were no moms frantically chasing after their kids trying to squirt them with DEET to avoid death by Lyme tick. I seriously find this to be really sad... it's like just playing and being a kid is so much harder these days. No wonder all of those little a-holes sit around on their cell phones all day. 

We played on merry-go-rounds. Oh jeez, there were merry-go-rounds everywhere when I was little. Who knew they were so dangerous?  All I knew was how awesome it felt to be twirling around in a cloud of dusty dirt til you almost threw up. We had one at the elementary school and one at the local playground and we would get those things going so fast... I remember my one skinny little sister would literally be hanging on for dear life with her legs flailing in the air. It was really funny. We had no clue someone could easily get really hurt on those things. I don't think my kids even know what a merry-go-round looks like.

We would ride in the back of pickup trucks. Doing this was the norm out in the country. If someone had a pickup truck, it was a guarantee that there would be people riding in the back of it, end of story. I can't imagine that none of us ever fell out because we were generally idiots, misbehaving and cheating death left and right. I actually rode through the entire state of Texas ON A HIGHWAY in the back of a pickup truck filled with blankets and pillows and teenagers. WTF, MOM?! I could be dead right now! I would never let one of my kids ride in the back of a pickup truck, what am I, a moron?

Our dad took us out driving well before it was legal. I seriously learned how to drive at like 12 or 13 years old. My dad or uncle would take us driving out in the country every now and then. My uncle in particular would pick up a forty (or three), and let us drive him around for hours. That's why I am such a great (and so modest too!) driver. A week or so ago my dad mentioned taking my 14 year old out to drive and I was like, THERE'S NO WAY!

We could go to the gate at the airport. Remember the days when you didn't have to wait 45 minutes to go through a security check line fumbling through your bag removing anything that could potentially be deemed as terroristic, with your shoes and jacket off? Remember when you could bring whatever you wanted on a plane, even a jack knife or an open container of mayonnaise?  Remember when you could meet your person at the gate, just like the movies... all exciting and amazing, waiting and waiting and waiting for the plane to just land. I miss that.

Everyone in the universe could blow smoke in your face. Back in the day, you could smoke anywhere, at any time, for however long you wanted. The days of everyone smelling like a god damn ash tray are over! Because now people give a crap about inhaling someone else's shitty, cancer causing, tar-filled second hand smoke. It makes me gleefully happy that I don't have to be forced to waft the smoke from my eyes when all I really want to do is chill with my friends, or watch a movie without hacking, or sit on an airplane breathing relatively decent air. I have to admit on my most recent flight, I wanted to secretly light a cigarette in the bathroom just to see what would happen. I'm such a rebel. A rebel without a cigarette.

We got some serious (and well deserved) bare hiney spankings. Oof. Kids these days have no idea of how scary it was when your Mom said, "Just wait til your Dad gets home!" Which actually meant, "Just wait til your Dad gets home and whips your ass, you little jerks!" When I grew up it was totally acceptable to get a bare hiney spanking for being a shitty little brat. When we would misbehave enough to get my Mom frazzled enough to utter those terrifying words, we would hustle upstairs and put on as many layers of underpants as we could fit on our butts, hoping that our Dad wouldn't notice the extra paddding when he smacked us good for being naughty. Apparently you're not really supposed to mention that you're not opposed to giving your kid a swat on the ass anymore as needed, or other parents will promptly report you to DSS for child abuse. There's a huge difference between abuse and a smack, in my opinion. 

Your safety was definitely over-rated back in those days. Seat belts, bike helmets, sunblock? What's that? Locking the door to your house, wouldn't think of it! Letting your kid walk home from school alone to an empty house? No big deal... and while you're at it, why don't you start the noodles for dinner? Going for a Sunday drive with the fam? Don't forget to grab Dad's six-pack! The more that I think about it, the more I am shocked so many of us actually survived.

was jake ryan actually a jerk?

So I'm going to go out on a limb and just say it: I thought Jake Ryan was the hottest guy ever.  Like, I really thought that if I tried hard enough, I could meet Jake Ryan and get him to kiss me (also, John Kennedy Jr, but that boat has sailed).  I figured once we made out, it would be love at first smooch and we'd live happily ever after.

Let's be real, Jake Ryan was every 80's girl's fantasy guy.

But, was he really a jerk?

Now that I can look back with some perspective, the perspective of an old person who has been in real relationships with real guys, I'm distressed to say that I think he could have been.

I know, right??

First of all, if you've lived under a rock for a really, really long time, or fine, you never watch (the all-time coolest) movies from the greatest decade ever, fondly referred to as the 80's, you might not know who Jake Ryan even is.  Shocking turn of events, I know, but I feel like I have to explain, to the people who never watched Sixteen Candles.  Really??  You never watched Sixteen Candles, the iconic John Hughes film??  How, even?  I'm officially ashamed.

Jake Ryan's name is actually Michael Schoeffling.  I knew that without looking it up, not even kidding.  Jake Ryan was the love interest in the movie Sixteen Candles, he was a senior. He was this adorable, attractive, completely popular guy, who was Abercrombie & Fitch-esque before A & F was even a thing.  He wore plaid flannel shirts, cargo pants, sweater vests and Levis like he was born in them.  No guy has rocked the sweater vest quite the same since.  He had a sweet, slightly shy grin. Also, he had great hair.  He didn't have a cheesy mullet or feathered Sean Cassidy hair, just a good head of thick, dark hair in a cool and timeless style.  Admittedly, he did wear very short shorts with tube socks, but we can't be winners all the time, right?  In Jake Ryan's defense, it was the style at the time.

Now that we are all on the same page, and we all know who Jake Ryan is, the question of whether or not he was actually a jerk begs to be asked.  So, was he? 

First of all, Jake Ryan had to have been rich, being that he was driving a Porsche.  He also had a house with a wine cellar in it.  A private wine cellar reeks of wealth, lets be real.  At the end of the day, rich, Porsche driving teenage guys with wine cellars are almost always a douchebag.  

Secondly, it's pretty convenient that Jake Ryan suddenly seemed interested in poor, quirky Sam Baker when she said that she wanted to lose her virginity to him.  Interesting Jake... very interesting. Why didn't he notice her before he thought he could get into her pants?

Third, when you really think about it, when he calls to leave a message for Sam and her grandparents answer the phone, he turns on the sickly sweet, super polite charm.  It's lovely to have manners, but you're not fooling anyone, we can all spot a suck up, Jake Ryan.

And last, but certainly not least, Jake Ryan was checking out Sam while he was going out with another girl.  Not cool Jake Ryan, not cool.

On the flip side, Jake Ryan did get Sam's underpants back from the dorks without being creepy about it, and he picked her up in his Porsche gave her a birthday cake and kissed her on her birthday... and, well, he is Jake Ryan. 

What do you think??  I think it's time for you to watch Sixteen Candles. Just a heads up, if you watch the uncensored version, don't watch with your kids.  I learned the hard way. I completely forgot that there is a straight up naked scene of Jake Ryan's hot cheerleader girlfriend in the shower.  My kid's eyeballs almost popped out of her head before I got the chance to frantically fumble with the remote control and turn it off.

Anyway, watch it and chime in.  What's your opinion?  Was Jake Ryan really a jerk?

11 forgotten products all 80's girls were obsessed with...

Hey, that's Carol Seaver! 

If you were an 80's girl like I was, I bet you can't imagine a world where you didn't have your vanity covered in several, if not all of these products.

1. Jean Naté after bath splash - You could get this quality "after bath splash" right at the corner drugstore. Just a splash was all you really needed for everyone to know you were coming.  If I recall correctly, we used to have the Jean Naté powder puff thing on the back of our toilet too, for convenience obviously.

2. Love's Baby Soft - This was the first perfume my mom ever let me get, the kind you wore as you were crossing from the lowly pre-teens to the big time junior high school years. Another high quality perfume that you could pick up at your local pharmacy. It really smelled powdery like a baby, which now that I think about it was kind of weird. 

3. Tickle Deodorant - I loved this stuff because it was deodorant that was fun! Whoever designed this definitely knew their market, what kids would be into, deodorant-wise. The ball of this thing was huge and really covered every square inch of your pit. B.O. wasn't happening if you wore this stuff, and B.O. was your worst nightmare in those days. And who doesn't love a colorful rolly-polly deodorant anyway?

4. "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific" shampoo - Back in the day, when people still said "Gee..." Truth be told, it actually did make your hair small terrific...

5. Lip Lickers -  I totally remember having a ton of these in different flavors at the bottom of my purse, collecting lint.  Remember the tin top thing that slid off to magically reveal the greasy lip balm stuff?  Aw. These were the kind of things that you always used up fast because they were just fun. Then if you were really crafty, you'd save the empty tin and make an Asprin holder or something. That wasn't me.

6. Noxzema skin cream- I could recognize this smell a mile away.  Everyone I knew seemed to have this little blue jar of awesomeness.  If I remember correctly, my BIL Ty had a huge crush on the Noxzema Girl all through high school. I think he still does, actually. I was not much of a skin cream wearer, I was a very low maintenance kid, product-wise, but I think I had a jar of this stuff just because everyone else was doing it, mom. 

7. Aqua Net Hairspray - The product that may have single handedly ruined the ozone layer thanks to teen girls everywhere. Well!  In the day of super high bangs and hard sticky hair, girls needed to be on point for the average high school day! I personally did not contribute to the ruined ozone. I was not a hair spray user because I didn't have the patience to do my hair all tall like that (I cannot say the same for my older sister), which is why I am not completely mortified when my mom brings out my old high school class pictures. I think I tried high hair once in Colorado and I walked into school thinking maybe I was all that and my boyfriend looked at me like, wtf did you do, Jessee?? So I never did THAT again.

8. Sun In hair lightener - Speaking of hair, if you wanted to look like a beach babe, even if you lived nowhere near a beach, you sprayed this stuff in your hair.  Or if your mom wouldn't buy it, you could just use lemon juice.  I speak from experience. I totally remember forcing myself to "lay out" on my back porch to let this stuff sink in and make me look beachy. I hated laying out. I'm sure I also had baby oil slathered all over me for the perfect tan.  Ah, the good old days before people gave a crap about skin cancer.

9. Bonne Belle Lip Smackers - I had a bunch of these things pre-junior high.  Once you hit junior high this stuff was considered too babyish to use publicly.  Maybe it was the primary colors or something, but you definitely had to toss these to your younger sisters and move on to lip gloss if you wanted to be like the cool kids.

10. Maybelline Great Lash Mascara - Oh man, every so often I will walk past these little pink and green things and it will bring back memories of getting all ready for a high school dance. The eyeballs had to be exactly perfect to get the last slow dance with your crush - a little eye liner and mascara went a long way. I think they also had them in colors and I may or may not have had one in electric blue. These have been around for like, 40 years, no joke. And they are still really inexpensive! 

11. Sea Breeze astringent for your skin - So this stuff burned the shit out of your face, but it didn't seem to deter the masses of girls who swore by it. I was lucky enough to not be zitty, and unlucky enough to have really dry skin, so I could not use this without looking like a leper.

on a similar note, I would have picked Duckie

I'm keeping with the 80's theme that I seem to have going.  Just go with it, I'm feeling nostalgic.

Anyway, I was a huge Duckie fan.  Pretty in Pink Duckie, if you were unclear.

I think Andie was a jerk for blowing off Duckie and deciding to hang with rich, preppy (and kind of not cute) Blane, but I guess you can't make a person like another person, right? Back in the day, I think lots of people were into Andrew McCarthy (the guy who played Blane), I can totally imagine the old Teen Beat posters hanging on the walls of suburban teen aged girls everywhere. He wasn't my type, I didn't like him, I didn't have a Teen Beat poster of him hanging on my wall.  He was too skinny and boring and average in my opinion.  Nothing about him stood out from the crowd.  I thought he was a twerpy sheep.  Also, Andie and Blane had zero chemistry in that movie, if you ask me.

Speaking of jerks in Pretty in Pink, Steff was the exact opposite of the kind of guy I would have gone out with when I was in high school.  Rich jackasses were kind of off my radar.  I do quite enjoy James Spader in general though. I really think it took me a while to like him because his obnoxiously narcissistic character Steff spilled over into real life.  It was hard to look at him and not see a jerk with feathered hair in an over sized blazer. I do love him in The Blacklist  though and I would probably go out on a date with him if he asked me, he does have a really distinctively sexy voice.  But I digress...

So I would have definitely chosen Duckie.  I like quirky and different.  I guess that everyone already knows that in the original screenplay, Andie was supposed to end up with Duckie. Apparently the tester audience or something didn't think that it was believable. I think I would have liked to see them end up together.  He might have seemed a touch annoying and slightly stalkerish, but still adorable and funny and loyal.  And nerdy guys are notorious for being the best kissers. Ultimately, she would have broken his fragile heart, but it still would have been great to see.  

Legit question: Why doesn't anyone ever choose quirky and different?  Why does nobody give the cool, funky guy who isn't afraid to be an individual and wear a bolero a chance?  Sometimes you have to look past things that other people might see as unappealing or character flaws! The best part of someone is their real self!  Who wants a fake, watered down, surfacey version of a person?

Thinking about these 80's characters totally just made me remember someone so out of the typical plain old normal people I'd always surround myself with back then. This guy, Reagan was his name (I remember his name because it was interesting and different), lived across the street from me in Denver, and I'm basically 100% sure he never knew I existed.  I thought he was so cool from afar, though I never had the nerve to approach him. I pretty much forgot all about him after I became friends with other people, but he definitely looked like the kind of guy that would be in a John Hughes film, definitely like the kind of guy I would have been into.  I wonder if as a grown up, he is still kind of cool.

7 things every girl wore in the late 80's

Tretorns: 
tennis sneakers for the rich and trendy.  Even if you didn't play tennis.

Ray Bans: 
so Tom Cruise, Risky Business.

The benneton rugby: 
This was a must have.  Along with the Coca-Cola rugby.  I think I saved up for a while for this - it was so expensive back in the day.  You can also see this on an actual real live 80's girl in one of the pics below.

Bomber jackets: 
were the bomb.  See what I did there?  I think this style somehow came about because of Tom Cruise in Top Gun.  I lost mine in college.  I probably was not drunk when that happened. Heh.

The scrunchie socks: 
See below

The oversized blazer: 
Honestly, this is one 80's style that's still kind of on my radar.  I love the oversized coat and jeans.  Keds, scrunchy socks, and Madonna-esque hair? Nah.  Then, yes.  Now?  Not so much.

The Guess overalls:  
Oh man, this picture.  Girl on Left is wearing Ray Bans, Guess jean overalls, keds and scrunchy socks, and Girl on Right with that Benneton Rugby shirt (that I had to have) and denim skirt... so much classic 80's right here. I had those Guess overalls in the shorts version.  They were killer.

80's anyone?

No it is not really 80's week.  But I was thinking, maybe it can be 80's week.  Because I was an 80's kind of girl.  And the 80's were pretty good to me.  And who doesn't love the 80's? 



After reading this old post about my love of Lloyd Dobler and 80's movies and stuff, I decided to write a Top 10. Usually Top 10's are kind of irritating, but this isn't because it's cool. That's right.  I said it.  And really, I do love a good list.


So on to My Top Ten List of 80's Teen Movie Crushes. I wish there was a better name for this list, but there just isn't, so let's just stop talking about it and get on with the guys.

My Top Ten List of 80's Teen Movie Crushes:

1. Obviously, Number 1 is Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack). Say Anything. Unless one means 10, but I want 1 to mean 1. I take #1 literally. So yeah. Lloyd Dobler. He gave her his heart, and all she gave him was a pen.



2. Duckie (Jon Cryer). Sixteen Candles. Try a Little Tenderness? Hello? Once again, I will say obviously. Based on this post. If you didn't read it, it's your own fault.  Duckie is definitely a close second to Lloyd Dobler.


3. Christian Slater. J.D. from Heathers. There's just something about his jawline, and voice. I am pretty 100% sure that I would have married Christian Slater back in the 80's if he asked me. I'll just leave it at that.


4. Jason Patric - Michael from The Lost Boys. First vampire movie that I ever loved. He was so freaking cute. You have to admit, he definitely rocked a mullet.



5. Corey Haim. Oh... of the Coreys, he was by far the cutest with that crooked little smile. Haven't you ever seen Lucas?? I really was unusually sad when he died.




6. Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell). The Outsiders. I read this book before I saw the movie. When I first saw Ponyboy, he was exactly the way I pictured him. Man I loved that greaser. :)


7. River Phoenix. Jimmy Reardon. Sheesh. He was so cute. Everything about him was magnetic. And I mean that in the least cheesy way possible.




8. Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles. I just had to look his real name up in IMDb (Michael Schoeffling) , and I realized he was also my #9, which would have been Joe from Mermaids. I can't believe I never put that together. It wasn't my fault that I grew up in a google-less era.


9. So now I had to shift my #10 into my #9 slot, which means I have to add one more crush. I don't think that will be difficult. So I am going with Rusty James (Matt Dillon) from Rumble Fish as my number 9. Another book I read before seeing the movie. Matt Dillon has definitely aged well. Like a fine wine. However, I'm not much of a wine drinker, so I guess I wouldn't know.


10. Marty McFly. What a great character. What a great movie.


Honorable Mention: Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck). Oh whatever. No comments from the peanut gallery. Yes, I liked him better than Ferris. If you know me at all you would already have figured that out by now.

I swear this is the last time I mention it

Speaking of mini vans, the first experience I had with driving one was when I lived in Colorado, back in the 80's.


Let me just start by saying that everything embarrassed me when I was 17.  Especially dorky cars.  And the only car that was available for me to drive out in Colorado belonged to my aunt. Even though it was a new model and actually very nice, I was still mortified to drive it.

It was a yellow VW mini bus.  Back then they weren't called mini vans.  I think they were called nerdy embarrassing mortifying Vanagons or something.  Anyway, I was actually very lucky to be able to drive it, but every time I did, I would slink way low in the seat, like very concerned that I might be seen by someone in a much cooler vehicle.  Not that anyone knew me or anything.  But it was still a huge concern.  And trust me, everyone out there had a much cooler vehicle. 

It's actually funny because my boyfriend at the time drove a red VW bug - like one of the older models, and that didn't embarrass me at all.  I loved that car.  Except when it caught on fire when we were on the highway one day.  If I remember correctly, we had to brave the flames to grab a bottle of alcohol out of the glove compartment so we didn't get caught with it.  It was definitely embarrassing when the tow truck dropped us off at our destination (a wedding) with a smoking charred VW hooked up to the back of it though.
 
Where I lived in CO, it seemed like everyone was loaded - kids my age had awesome cars, and they all drove to school.  The school parking lot looked like a new car dealership.  Make that a high end new car dealership.  I took the bus.  Then this girl I met my first week there took pity on me and started picking me up every day in her huge shiny Bronco.  Seriously, I'm pretty sure the brand new Bronco was nicer than any car that any kid I knew back home had.

Now that I think of it, the bright yellow VW bus was a huge step up from anything I was allowed to drive back home.  Back home, we used to drive two cars as teenagers - one we named the Crud Mobile, and the other was affectionately called The Manila Envelope.  The crud mobile was this massive white car that my dad let us drive.  It was so deeply embedded in the mortifying category that nothing could pull it out.  The crud mobile was so wide that it took up an entire lane.  Seriously.  The entire lane.  I am actually positive that car would not fit in my current two car garage.  The interior was huge and fit a crap load of kids.  And the upholstered ceiling was coming down, so as you were driving, you were paying less attention to keeping the car on the road and more attention to swatting the upholstery out of your face.

The Manila Envelope was another of my dad's extra large cars that he let us drive.  Again with the massive wideness.  Except this one was a subtle Manila Envelope-type of color.  Pretty tough to slyly show up somewhere in that ride.  Typically, we would park about a block away from wherever it was that we were going because we were so embarrassed.  Ah.  Good times.

I do have great memories of driving around in those cars though.  Even though they were bigger than a swimming pool, I still had some sense that I was lucky to have wheels, because not everybody did.  We lived in the country, so besides going anywhere within walking distance, we needed a ride. 

I cannot even imagine my kids faces if I pulled up to pick them up from school in one of those cars.  Anybody have an old crappy Impala that I can borrow?