Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Don't Feed the Bears!

When I was in high school, I was told by a few wild girls how to get an easy morale lift. Being an adolescent, and liable to my share of the blues, ennui, and disappointments, this prospect seemed worth looking into.

The naughty Catholic school girl meme is more of a fantasy than reality.  Still, its history might have begun with Britney Spears's breakout hit Baby One More Time (1999). Anyway, you can get a naughty adult Halloween costume in that style, and one of the local breasturants had a night in which women were encouraged to dress like schoolgirls! Is that ever kind of kinky? The reality is that if any of us came to school dressed like that, we would be sent home if not expelled; and have to wear sackcloth and ashes and kneel in front of the bishop's house! And people would still be talking about it in twenty years!

No, any wildness or naughtiness was quite muted in reality.  

Since we were blessed with one of those half-days of school, four of the more daring girls invited me along on their little adventure. And oh my! It consisted of driving near a boys' high school walking down the banquette that runs along the back of that school.  On the other side was a chapel, and next to it a fenced in asphalt schoolyard, and a handball court there for no apparent purpose. Who plays that, anyway? Guys used to go behind it to smoke.). Oh, I might mention that the boys attending that school were still in session with an after-lunch recess in progress.

Anyway, we start to walk past the yard, and I was told, "Angel! Slow up and don't walk so fast! We want to be noticed by the guys. And one of us who shall be unnamed as she's now an attorney pinned up her skirt beyond mid-thigh level; and gave the most deliberately provocative walk possible. And she was wearing girls' school saddle oxfords, not fuck-me shoes! Such daring cheek! I can imagine some of the older spinsters of the Church laying into us with criticism!  Anyway, the five of us attracted several of the guys dressed in their khaki-colored military type uniforms and they came up to the fence. They gave the sense of being caged animals, which is a metaphor for high school, anyway.

One of them said, "Angel?" It was my copain Dee-Doh, so I went over and started talking to him. One of the other girls went with, "Angel, don't feed the bears," meaning letting them look but not talk to them. Such a tease!

Still, I was glad to see him and lingered a bit, until this black-robed priest or something told me to move along. I did, hoping that my friend would not get into trouble for knowing what appeared to be loose Catholic girls to the censorious black robe. Dee-Doh told me later that he was reproved for talking with girls! But only in a half-hearted way.  He told the priest that he was just talking to a friend of his sister's (true) that he knew from his parish. They didn't see him as having a priestly vocation in his future, anyway.




8 comments:

Anonymous said...

We know what kind of specific teasing was going on.

TexWisGirl said...

leaving my plaid jumper behind me when i left catholic elementary school, i shan't be donning it again for any reason. :)

Cloudia said...

Oh Angel; this school uniform thing is older than Brittany!

Thanks for sharing. [ and for riding along in my taxi. The dog is real ]



ALOHA from Honolulu
ComfortSpiral
=^..^=

Dixie@dcrelief said...

I loved saddle oxfords... sigh.

Bilbo said...

Feeding the bears or chumming the water?

Linda Kay said...

What a fun post, Angel. Reminds me of when some friends and I "escaped" from the girls dorm on our Christian college campus to run through the boys dorm late at night for the fun of it, then were allowed back into the dorm by a waiting friend. It was a hoot, but we were found out and put on academic probation for a semester. We were also told to not wear pattent leather shoes as they reflected our underwear...we all went out and bought some.

John A Hill said...

...nor did they see Angel as a future nun!

Mike said...

The censorious black robe said get out of here girls, these are mine.