There I was, headed out to pick up my daughter who had been at a school event.  I was wearing my Razorback jammie pants and pink socks with the rubber grippy designs on the bottom… definitely dressed for success.  On the outside, it was pretty clear that I was past my years of worrying about my appearance at 10:30 p.m.

The musical offerings in the cd player in Hubby’s truck range from Iron Maiden to G3 Live.  However, I have added one of my own in the #6 slot – Depeche Mode: the Singles ’81-’85.  (think he’ll notice?)  As I drove through the dark, listening to “Dreaming of Me” and “New Life”, the 40-something woman I am faded back and was replaced by the teenager I was.  Without warning, I was singing at the top of my lungs, head bouncing back and forth… “I just can’t get enough! I just can’t get enough!”  I was smiling.  Grinning, really.  I thought to my self: “Why don’t any dance clubs play this kind of music anymore??”  Perhaps I was delusional.

This was when it occured to me; a revelation: John Cusack would TOTALLY have asked me to prom.  If he’d known me, of course.  If he’d been hanging out in Pasadena, Texas in 1982 or ’83.  If he was as cool in person as he seemed to be in the movies.  (Something tells me he is.)  I’m pretty sure that I was as cool as the girls I saw in Valley Girl and Say Anything and all those great John Hughes movies.  I wore hats like Molly Ringwald.  I bought clothes at resale shops and altered them to be more unique.  I had short hair that I spiked up and colored.  And that was before there were 2,873 hair products to make hair spikey, by the way.  I was in the DRAMA CLUB for pete’s sake – you know I was cutting edge! And he was the geeky edgy girl’s dream …

So, yeah… Cusack would have adored me.  His sister, Joan, and I were born on the same day, so we would have had something to talk about to get the conversation started.  From there it would have just been one perfect line of dialogue after another.  He would admire my Thompson Twins buttons… I would ask him what it was like to work with River Pheonix and Rob Reiner… He would tell me he loved the tweed coat I picked up at a thrift store for $3.00…

Sigh.

I pulled up to the high school, speakers pounding.  Teens gazed in amazement… likely feeling sympathy for the student who had to get into the truck with the crazy lady with a penchant for electronica.  My daughter approached, laughing.  (Better than crying, right?)  She assured me that she could hear the music from the door of the school, which made me happy.  Lucky for me, she embraces her parents’ weirdness.  It just reassures her she’s not adopted I suppose.

I wonder if John has kids…?