Eighties Lady

I caught my first glimpse of the eighties lady as I was going around a corner past the cereal aisle. Her fashion offense was wreaking havoc on her balance, and she was tottering along unsteadily behind her grocery cart—a wisp of a woman balanced precariously on four inch high heels. Resisting the urge to stare, I turned my cart toward the juice section and smiled to myself as I walked away.

It wasn’t until later, near the yogurts, that I truly got a good look at the lady. Up close, her fashion faux-pas was even more egregious than at first glance, and I found myself needing to duck quickly up the bread aisle as an uncontrollable chuckle welled up inside me. By the time I returned to my cart, bread in hand, I was ready to take in the full extent of the eighties absurdity straight-faced.

The lady stood about 5’6” in her high heels, and was skinnier than could have been good for her. Above her black high heels, she wore skin-tight blue jeans that tapered to the ankle, emphasizing her chicken-like legs. The denim was deep blue along all the seams, fading to nearly white along the front and back of the leg. Her baggy, royal blue sleeveless shirt would have been normal but for the four inch black elastic belt she wore around her too-skinny waist—a belt that included a large, round, black rhinestone-studded buckle in the front. Out of the sleeves of this royal blue shirt stuck the lady’s long, semi-muscular, too-skinny arms. She had the muscle tone of someone who works hard to be in shape without ever truly succeeding, and the skin tone of a woman who has spent a few too many hours in the tanning salon.

Her face, too, was leathery looking and overly tanned. Her lips were covered with a dark plum colored lipstick, lined with a darker version of the same color. Having lined them to the outside of her natural lips rather than within them, the overall effect was to make her already-full lips look oversized and puffy. The lady’s eyes were obscured behind large, rectangular sunglasses. On her head, she wore a black baseball cap, and she had a long mousey brown ponytail pulled through the opening in the back above the adjustable strap. Rhinestones studded the front of the baseball cap and the top of the brim, as well as sides of her sunglasses.

The lady stood for a minute, examining the yogurt selections. She then selected a fat-free vanilla yogurt, and delicately tip-toed her way back to her cart. As she passed by, she glanced up at me, raising the corners of her lips in a sickly smile. Then she turned away and tottered off behind her cart, rhinestones glinting in the bright fluorescent lights, leaving the scent of perfume in my nose and her comically awful fashion sense burned in my mind.