When I was Seventeen

It was a very good year… 

*Cough* Choke on a bit of barf. I really hate that song.

However, I was reading BUST magazine’s advice for your 17 year-old self and thought, “Man! Seventeen. That was the shit, yo.”  Yeah, I really talk like that in my head.  I know it doesn’t jive with my blond bob and pearls.  I started thinking back to seventeen.  Cue time travel swirls and…

When I was seventeen…

I played Stray Cats, Sexy & 17 almost non-stop.

I drove around in my Volvo 240 DL, stopping at the local Stop & Shop to pick up sheet cakes, while listening to music like Regulate, Tempted, Green Day, and old Duran, Duran tunes.  Screw Nirvana, that wasn’t my style. 

Why were we picking up sheet cakes?  To eat of course and throw at each other on the beach or in my car.  Cake fights between my friends and I were legen..wait for it… dary.

I drove back country roads full of deep, dark teen angst and drama contemplating shitty boy behavior, friend betrayals and my lack of boobs and how to rise above it all while listening to Pet Shop Boys and Souxsie and the Banshees.  Each time I turned a corner on some twisty lane I hoped I would encounter something new, something I hadn’t seen before in my sleepy, small town.  Typical.

I worked the register at CVS and took care of the shampoo and make-up aisle.  I thought it was a pretty sweet gig.  I was also that clerk who was totally going to price check your ass if you came into the store to buy condoms.  Extra slow if you seemed like you were in a hurry.  “Oops!  Did I just hit the void key again?! So sorry!”  A note to the consumer.  Don’t try and return condoms.  That’s just gross.

At seventeen I had no idea that the world was my oyster even when I told E that, “we are at such an enviable age.”  I know. Don’t you just want to smack some sense into that girl?  Me too.  No, instead I thought the world seemed to have too much to offer and I had no idea just what it was I was looking to get from it or give it.  I could barely see beyond the end of the week and what was playing at the local Showcase Cinema let alone graduating and attending college. 

What were you doing at 17?