Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown Read Online Free PDF Page A

eighth-grader. I could hear the choir singing “ Hallelujah!” in my head.
    As my dad paid for my purse and Nicole paid for hers, Wendy thought aloud about getting some Pumas in deep blue.
    “They’re so different from the white ones everyone wears,” she said.
    “I know,” Jen Albert added, “the white ones get dirty so fast.”
    As we walked out of the store, bags in hand, my dad turned to me and said, “Hey Dean, do you want to stay here and shop with your friends?”
    “Yeah,” Wendy said, “come with us; my mom will bring you home.”
    The thought of shopping with the eighth-grade girls was too good to imagine. Why-oh-why was Fern Schwartz at the car dealership test-driving new Fords?
    “Go ahead,” my dad said, kissing me on the forehead.
    It wouldn’t be until years later that I found out that my dad had called Wendy’s dad for advice about the girls who sent the pizzas. Since Wendy and her posse were going to Suburban Square anyway, they promised Wendy’s dad they’d look for me. Wendy, wherever you are, with all my heart, thank you.
    By that Monday, word spread that I was spotted with the eighth-graders in Suburban Square. My Bermuda bag became the must-have item, and since I was the first to have it, it gave me a step up in my popularity. I had taken down Fern Schwartz in a clean swipe and she would never bother me again. I was friends with the eighth-graders and, moreover, Nicole Thomas and I were “purse buddies.”
    I know my dad didn’t realize the grand gesture he’d bestowed on me by having the eighth-graders come to my rescue, but he saved me from an imprisoned life that only tween girls were capable of making worse than purgatory. Thanks, Dad.
    I still have flat feet. Given the advancement in shoe technology, though, I can buy any sneaker I want and throw an orthotic in. Who knew that advancements in foot technology could have saved a pizza place from wasting all those extra pizzas?

The Shrinking Dolphin Shorts
    he thing about puberty is that it springs up on you so fast, you don’t have time to get your bearings straight.
    I was in the seventh grade at Welsh Valley Middle School outside of Philadelphia. Fair Isle sweaters with their garland-style necks were the “it” sweaters for 1982. You might as well have just dropped out of school altogether if your polo shirt was sans alligator on your left breast (not to mention the time spent making sure that its soft collar stuck straight up at all times, which was virtually impossible but, nonetheless, give it the old college, er ... middle-school try). The summer of sixth grade, though, was all about the Dolphin shorts, and since everyone who was anyone at Welsh Valley Middle had the satin-white-on-the-front, blue-on-the-back short shorts, I had to have them too. Thankfully, my mother obliged and bought me two pairs, which I wore all summer long at Camp Akiba, where the craze had also hit.
    Where Julie Pelagatti’s boobs became the envy of all the girls and a source of adoration from the boys, I got barely a bump. Where Amy Chaikin’s thighs got longer and leaner, mine formed into one uni-thigh. Frankly, by 1982, puberty had turned me into a pimply, no-chest, chubby mess with two sausages for legs.
    The first warm day of spring in 1982 meant nothing to me aside from the fact that I had gym class. That morning, instead of packing my sweatpants, I took out the old satin Dolphin shorts that made me feel so chic just a matter of seasons before. We would be running the mile that day, and I knew I had to bring something light to fight the humidity the day had brought.
    As the girls in my gym class got ready in the locker room, modestly holding their shirts to their chests so as not to let on what had happened to them that year, I threw on my Dolphin shorts, which I noticed were a little snug, but who cared, and my favorite MY FRIEND WENT TO MIAMI AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT shirt that my friend Tamra Wachs had bought me, and headed