642 Things to Write about Challenge: Week 2

As I started last week, I am continuing to play along with Colleen on her blog, and answering her questions as part of her blogging challenge. I’ve already answered this in the comments section, but thought I’d jump over here to my own blog and add some more to my answer.

This week’s topic is:

“Describe something you wanted badly and once you got it, never used.”

Alright, this one is a rather embarrassing story as well as one that dates myself. I hesitated to even use this one as a launching point for a blog post it was that embarrassing.

When I was between the 8th grade and freshman year in high school, Michael Jackson was huge. This is when “Beat It” and then “Thriller” were chart toppers. He was the thing. I decided that I wanted to own a jacket like the red leather one with the zippers he wore in the video for his song, “Beat It”.

(Take a minute and head on over and enjoy that video. It’s pure early 80s awesomeness.  I’ll wait)

Welcome back. Now, I don’t really remember now why I wanted this jacket so much. My only excuse is that I was 13 or 14 or something and Michael Jackson was cool.

Suffice to say, the jacket was really not me. I am neither red-leather nor shiny zippers (not then, and not now). Thinking back, I remember myself as being fairly invisible in high school. I was quiet. I didn’t join many clubs or extra curricular activities until my senior year. While I didn’t hang with any one particular click, I did have a few really good friends. I certainly wasn’t going to any functions that required me to be sporting a totally trendy with the times Michael Jackson faux jacket.

I think that it was either Sears or JCPenney that sold this cheap pleather knock off of the jacket design. I don’t remember how much I paid for it, but it had to have been something like $45 or $50. When I was in 9th grade, only earning money through baby sitting, this was a lot of money and a lot of hours spent watching children. I saved up over several months, and then finally purchased the jacket.

I never wore it. Not even once.

After purchase, it went into my closet, still in the plastic bag with the hanger sticking out that the department store put over it when I purchased it. I know I tried it on, but with confronted with actually wearing it somewhere, well, I just felt silly. This jacket was not me. I wasn’t all hot pink and neon green like the other 80’s girls. I was more drab olive and tan. Still am. I was immediately embarrassed and upset that I’d spent all this money on a jacket I could never bring myself to wear.

After I went to college, I packed the jacket into a box and put it in my Mom’s basement for storage. After moving out for graduate school, I didn’t bother taking it with me. When I got my first house, the jacket stayed in my Mom’s basement. When she remarried and sold the house, it got lost. I don’t know if it’s still in her basement, or if it got lost.

I’ve never bought anything nearly as out of character and flashy since, unless you count the Star Trek science officer’s uniform I bought that I’ve yet to wear for Halloween. But that’s another story.

RSM.