Apparently, I was a bossy kid. My husband might tell you that I’m also a bossy grown-up, but it’s Valentine’s Day, so we won’t go there. At one point, my Dad even bestowed upon me the nickname “The Little Boss”. Personally, I would have preferred “The Little Princess,” so I could run away with The Little Prince, but I soon learned you can’t marry a cartoon. My sister Laura learned a similar lesson about computer game characters when she realized that Commander Keen would never be her boyfriend. Man, I loved that game…Where was I going with this again? Right! Bossy kid!
I was a bossy kid, and today, I’m feeling a little bossy once again. This bossiness comes from my dress, although this dress almost didn’t make it home. See, when I thrift, I’m usually a very decisive shopper. When the change room is about to bust open with 23 different garments, one must learn to say “yes” or “no” pretty quickly. Occasionally, though, I can’t make up my mind, and when I can’t make up my mind, I ask my Instagram followers to make it up for me. While I loved the way this 80s purple dress gathered in the front, and draped in the back, I wasn’t sure if it was 80s in the good way or bad. So, I posed the question to my fellow Instagrammers. The responses were mostly “80s good!” and one response in particular sealed the deal for me: “Very Judith Light.” Suddenly, the leafy opening credits of Who’s the Boss? passed before my eyes, and I thought “Oh what the heck, I’ll get the dress.”
For those of you who weren’t raised on TV, Judith Light portrayed Angela Bower in Who’s the Boss? For reasons I can’t explain, I’ve seen more than a few episodes of this show, even though the whole thing sort of creeped me out. I didn’t like Tony, I didn’t like Angela, and Mona just made me flat-out uncomfortable. Who’s the Boss? occupied this weird space in my childhood pop-cultural formation of TV shows I didn’t like, but watched anyway. My parents didn’t get home until 6, so I HAD to watch as much TV as possible before then.
Sure, we all loved Full House, Boy Meets World, Fresh Prince, and Saved by the Bell, and I’d still watch all of those shows in reruns, but those shows were the cream of the 90s child crop. On the other side of the pog, there were a whole host of lesser shows; shows like Who’s the Boss?, Sister Sister, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, and The Nanny. I’d bet more than a few Beanie Baby Trading Cards that many others in my generation also wasted precious hours of their youths on these lesser shows. We did not like these shows. We did not look forward to their presence on the screen, and yet, we can still recall particular episodes from all of them. What was in the mid-90s water that convinced all of North America to let Fran Drescher be a thing? I don’t know, I just don’t know.
But here we are. I’m in a dress that could very easily go “Full Angela,” if I blew out my hair and kept in the shoulder pads. Oddly enough, that’s the reason I bought it. So maybe this is my way of reclaiming all the hours I wasted on not caring about Tony and Angela’s chemistry. I may never get back that time, but at least I got myself a pretty sweet dress out of it. And that makes me a Boss.
…Now I just have to find a way to reclaim the hours spent on Teen Angel. Yikes.
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P.S.: These pictures were taken on the one-year anniversary of meeting my best blogger friend (BBF?) Jentine. When I started blogging, I thought I’d have some fun, but I never thought I’d end up with a real-life friend that I intend to keep long after blogs die off and fashion is replaced by silver space suits. Yen, you love cheese and cats and thrifting as much (and maybe more) than I do. For all those reasons and more, I love you. Cheers to many more years of removing the cat hair off each others’ vintage blazers.