I was at Safeway yesterday and I remembered that I needed shampoo. I don’t normally buy hair products at the grocery store but this was kind of an emergency. I had been using baby shampoo because that is all that was left in the shower.
So I was browsing in the shampoo aisle when I saw it. Paul Mitchell Shampoo One. I didn’t even know they still made Shampoo One, but there it was.
Yes, yes, I remember the commercial where Paul himself said that they didn’t guarantee their products unless I bought them in a salon but I couldn’t resist.
(Don’t worry, this story will eventually go somewhere.)
This morning I got in the shower and the second I smelled the Shampoo One it was as if I has been whisked back in time to the eighth grade. I was a huge user of Paul Mitchell products back in junior high school.
I could almost hear the Def Leppard and feel the spiral perm. I knew exactly who I had a crush on and who my math teacher was. I wanted to walk to 7-11 with Jill and buy Teen Beat to see if there were any articles on Corey Haim.
And then I remembered where I was and I looked at my son (who was in the shower with me and inexplicably washing my shower walls with bar soap) and realized how lucky I am and how great my life has turned out so far.
It is so easy to get frustrated with the day to day minutia: This morning Ian dumped a training potty full of pee on my carpet, Claudia threw a screaming fit in Trader Joe’s last week, I can’t get Spirit Airlines to refund my $29 the cat won’t stop meowing so that I will open up the window and it is 40 degrees outside.
But you know what? I have a great family, children and a nice place to live.
But most of all, I don’t have to be in junior high anymore.
Cross Posted on DC Metro Moms Blog.
So very true!
And best of all, you don’t have that perm anymore. And I can say that because I had that exact same perm for seven years.
On second thought it wasn’t exactly the same. My bangs never looked that kick ass.
Nice flashbacky post. Beauty hair-do.
What mean “junior high school”–is that some crazy USA term for grade 8?
(Came here from MotherBumper.)
Excellent earrings.
This is a great post.
Ooooh, the perm, with the bangs, and the big earrings that perfectly match your shirt! Love it!
Dang, you were cute. You coulda been on TV.
PS You are still cute, of course.
That’s why I never buy Aqua Net.
Salon Selectives hairspray does that to me. I don’t think they actually make it anymore, but there is a deodorant (Yes! Deodorant!) that smells exactly like it and I use it. It brings me right back to high school with the huge bangs, Bon Jovi, and drinking in empty fields.
I love your junior high picture. I have a high school one where my hair was so big, it didn’t all fit in the picture.
FELDMAN! CORY FELDMAN! What’s wrong with you, woman?
Amen, sista!
For me, it’s the strawberry shampoo. Or was that strawberry wine? I can never remember.
I wouldn’t take any amount of money to go through junior high again.
They (whoever they are) say that smell is the best trigger for memory. For me, junior high would be the smell of Ralph Lauran or Polo. I swear everyone and their uncle wore it back then.
Love the photo.
Anything is better than junior high. I remembered that today when my mom brought me a bunch of photos, many of them from junior high.
Amen.
The smells that bring me back to that time are Sebastian hair spray and this pink metallic L’Oreal lipstick called sealilly.
Yikeso.
the smell that brings me back is that hairspray – the one in the purple bottle? Is it called Aussie?
And Bon Jovi – totally. He’s coming to Tampa in a few weeks and I’d LOOOOVE to get tickets.
I saw him back in 87. woot!
Oh baby, you look like Jennifer Grey from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
Oh Tiger Beat magazine! Now that was an important publication, I got all my news from it.
I sometimes feel like life still is Junior High School and those days are difficult.
I think you were adorable in JHS!
Isn’t it amazing how a scent can take us back.
Yep. I saw a post the other day that simply said, “Take a moment to not miss junior high today,” and I was more than happy to follow that suggestion.
Great hair.
No truer words spoken.
Great post..I have to tell you, last week as the 22 year old was washing and conditioning my hair at the salon I said, “Oooo that conditioner smells good! Just like Body On Tap”…. Yeah, she had NO idea what I was talking about but man did it bring me back in time.
Yes life now is grand, but you can’t tell me that talking on the phone with headphones ALL NIGHT, eating frozen pizza and macaroni and cheese every day and roaming the neighborhood with Ken and Jason was THAT awful…
It’s great to not have to be in junior high any more. I don’t miss those days at all.
I gotta say I really do miss the Esprit half shirt. I am so damn short-waisted that the half shirt actually looked like a “normal” t-shirt on me.
While I would never want to repeat junior high, I wouldn’t mind a rebirth of the half shirt. It would save me a hell of a lot of chopping off t0shirt hems with the scissors and having to risk looking
Flash Dance-y.
Wow! Is that a cast photo from the movie The Breakfast Club?
Many will give up their life’s accumulation to have what you have now. You’re in a good place, despite the little irritable incidents.
omigod! ur like, totally foxy!
My junior high self is totally envious of how great your junior high self’s perm turned out. (Junior high self also wants to say, “Oh my God! I totally love your earings and lip gloss!”
Teen Beat — like food for the (junior high girl’s) soul…