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Broke Wife, Big City
I’m one of them
By Aprill Brandon
I don’t know who she is. I don’t know her name or what she looks like. All I know is that she ruined everything.
She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Just had to declare it from
every virtual rooftop she had downloaded on her phone. And then all the
others joined in. And now, they are all the laughingstock of the
Internet.
It didn’t have to be this way. There was no need to go public with how
basic they were. No one had to know how they bought a pumpkin spice
latte when it was still 85 degrees. No one had to be privy to their
almost slavish devotion to leggings paired with boots. Let alone their
adoration for faux fur-lined vests.
Which is why if I ever find out who the first woman was to openly
declare how much she loves fall, I’m going to strangle her with my
infinity scarf.
Why do I care so much, you ask? Because (shudder)... I’m one of them.
And now, thanks to one million Instagram accounts overloaded with
photos of ladies holding up a red leaf to their eye while they coyly
smile at the camera (#snuggleweather), the world knows we all exist.
And they hate us.
Oh sure, you could argue (and you would, in fact, be correct in arguing
this) that I’m part of the problem. That just because I try to keep my
basic-ness a secret doesn’t make me any better than the rest. But I
didn’t ask to be this way.
Do you think this Aprill spelled with two L’s wants to be lumped in
with all the Britanni’s spelled with an “i” and Megyn’s spelled with a
“y”? That I want to wear vintage T-shirts featuring movies I’ve never
seen or bands I’ve never listened to underneath my cozy knee-length
cardigan (a knee-length cardigan that is just one of the 67 in my
collection)?
Do you think I want to race to my closet as soon as September 1st
arrives and pull out my favorite furry slippers while wrapping both of
my hands around a mug of green tea and sighing contentedly while I look
out a window? Or that I want to curl up with a good book and read all
day as soon as the temperature drops below 70 (my moleskin notebook and
fancy pen placed just so beside me)? That I want to waste time scouring
Pinterest for decorating ideas before realizing I suck at decorating
and so end up just shoving some sunflowers into a pumpkin?
Do you think I want to be the person who only eats gourd-flavored baked
goods for three months straight? Or that I want to be the person who
snort lines of cinnamon like it’s cocaine while chugging apple cider
martinis?
No. I don’t. I don’t want to be a part of this cliche. But here I am,
frolicking in the pumpkin patch with the rest of my basic brethren.
I wasn’t raised this way. I was raised in a home where hoodies were
merely something you threw on when it got cold. Where coffee was
something you drank black. Where fall was simply just another season.
My mom didn’t own Ugg boots or oversized, non-prescription, black frame
glasses. No one in my family drank beer that was any flavor other than
beer. The only candles that burned inside our house were birthday
candles.
As a young girl growing up in the ‘90’s, wearing my torn flannel shirt
and purple lipstick with my Nirvana CD blasting from my gigantic
boombox, I never dreamed that I’d turned into that grown woman who
lights 43 pumpkin-scented candles and asks her husband to cuddle on the
couch in our Halloween jammies while we watch a “Gilmore Girls”
marathon. In fact, I’m pretty sure that young girl would kick my ass
with her Doc Marten boots if she knew what I became.
But I just can’t help myself. I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture.
If I was brainwashed by the powerful pumpkin farmer lobby in Washington
or if Eve herself made an apple-scented candle with the forbidden fruit
and then knitted a cozy yet stylish hat out of fig leaves. All I know
is that, as much as I try to fight it, I love all this fall crap. And
now, courtesy of Hayleigh and Bayleigh and Jyssycah, I am the butt of
several thousand Internet jokes.
So, thanks a lot, ladies. You just couldn’t keep quiet, could you?
Couldn’t just let us all continue to worship this time of year secretly
in the privacy of our own homes. Had to blast it out there, with no
thought of all the shrapnel that would rain down on the rest of
us.
I swear to God, I’d throw this venti Salted Caramel Mocha latte in all your faces…
…if only it didn’t taste so good.
...(Sip)...
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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