Childhood Favorites: The Awkward Years Edition

Continuing a series we did over at TMS, today I'm going back to the middle school years, a virtual treasure trove of awkward absurdity. The amount of "What the hell was I thinking?" items from this period of my life is too large to count, but here are some of the real doozies.

Tight-rolled pants - Who ever came up with this fad really needs to be tried for war crimes. If you grew up during this time period and claim to have never tried tight-rolling your jeans or pants, then you my friend are a goddamn liar, because everyone did it at one point or another, even if it was just briefly in front of your bedroom mirror before you said, "This is fucking stupid."

However I never got the memo that it was stupid. Neither did the hundreds of other kids in my junior high. Of course at that age we're so impressionable and naive, constantly wanting to fit in and be like the most popular kids in school. I firmly believe the popular clique could have showed up one day wearing assless chaps and ballgags and we would've followed suit without question.

Thankfully this fad died out before I reached high school. Now there have apparently been recent sightings of Katie Holmes with her jeans tight rolled. SON OF A BITCH! Scientology is behind this. I should've known.

Slap Bracelets - Remember these abominations? It was a cheap metal band that was usually covered in some printed fabric. Then you slapped the band on your wrist and it would wrap around? I never quite got the point of them. Would I normally wear a bracelet? Hell no. Would I wear one that slaps around my wrist? Shit yes. These things quickly fell out of favor when consumer groups began to complain that the bracelets sharp edges were dangerous and some dumb bastard kids were cutting their wrists. Wrist cutting huh? Slap bracelets may be responsible for starting the Emo Kid trend.

Umbro Shorts - Hey, you wanna wear soccer shorts? What? No, we're not actually playing soccer, we're just gonna wear the shorts because it's cool. Another strange trend that everyone seemed to embrace, no questions asked. They weren't even that comfortable to wear. Whenever you sat down for long periods of time the nylon would stick to your sweaty legs and leave you with swamp ass.

Seriously, if you're wearing soccer shorts, and you're not playing soccer, you look like a moron. At least the kids on the short bus weren't popular, or we all would've all been wearing hockey equipment.

Lifeforms T-shirts - I will say this. I never owned a No Fear shirt, because those were "lame". However a shirt with a bungee jumping crocodile or skydiving frog on the back? Hell yes, sign me up! I had like 4 or 5 of these puppies, all of which involved some sort of reptile or amphibian doing something extreme, like they were auditioning for a Doritos commercial.

Looking back there really are no words for how incredibly stupid these shirts were. A kid wearing a Lifeforms shirt had a 45% chance of getting his ass kicked by a kid wearing a Big Johnson shirt*.

*Turned inside out of course. That and the Coed Naked shirts were the bane of every assistant principal's existence.

Another Bad Creation - Ha, you laugh, but I bet you still know the words to Iesha and Playground! I won't even bring up that other child rap group that made you wear your clothes backwards.

I swing my beats .. at the playground..ya know!