During my epic summer between 7^th and 8^th grade, besides turning into a lobster, my mom dragged me along to help install her artwork in a gallery in Salt Lake City. Did I mention my mom was an artist (still is) and I was her slave labor?

Yes, I learned to crawl under an A-Frame at the Polk Street Art Fair. Yet another detail that made me completely non-relatable to the popular girls and therefore would be expunged from my public biography.

My mom was terrified of Mormons, so we spent all our free time at the most amazing place I’d been to in my life – the four story Super Mall at South Town – that had super high speed Ms. Pac Man and who do you think beat the high score within 10 minutes? Duh, me. I’ll still challenge any of you to a Ms. Pac Man off and I mean it.

But the best thing about the mall was it had a movie theatre. And that is where it happened. My life would never be the same.

I saw Pretty in Pink.

(If you have somehow lived this long without seeing Pretty in Pink, I feel super sad for you and jealous of you simultaneously. Watch it. Then rewind it and watch it again. But if you really must, this blog may be the best summary I’ve ever read.)

I felt like John Hughes gave me a roadmap. To world domination. Most girls saw that movie and longed to be Andie, the pouty outcast girl who bit her lip a lot and made her own ugly ass clothes.

Hi. I’d spent my whole life as an outcast – why the fuck would I want to attract attention to my weirdness? This girl made no sense to me.

I wanted to be Benny Hanson. Steff’s super popular mean girlfriend. She was the best!

Attention must be paid! Note that:

1. Benny’s so gorgeous she doesn’t even need a girl name.
2. Benny looks even hotter when she’s being mean.
3. Benny has an amazing sense of humor. I mean, Jim? Who thinks of that?!?
4. Benny’s hair is amaze-balls.
5. Benny’s make-up is super amaze-balls.
6. Benny wears rolled up blazers with shoulder pads like no one’s business.
7. Steff is her boyfriend.
8. Steff is so hot all he has to do is speak one word and I’m a tinglefest.*
9. Steff is approximately 8 million times hotter than Blaine. Puh-lease.
10. Steff has cocaine, weed and alcohol.
11. Did I mention Steff has cocaine?
12. Steff would never make her have sex in a horse stable. As if Benny would ever put up with shit (literally) like that. I mean, has anyone ever thought about Andie’s first time being to the smell of horseshit? And I thought my devirgination sucked.

Andie got the boy at the end – after high school was over. When being popular doesn’t even matter anymore. I mean, what was even her goal in life?

I think it was to frustrate every teen in the 80’s by making the world’s ugliest prom dress after a long built up and completely misleading montage.

Come to think of it, I didn’t want to be pretty in pink. That wasn’t even putting the bar high enough; it was burying the bar. I wanted to be supermodel in anything but pink. I hated fucking pink. I wanted to be the opposite of pink – tough, bitchy, invincible.

Pink was stupid and weak and vulnerable. I would never be like Andie. I don’t even think she cared about being popular. She just walked around pink all the time. That would never be me – again.

I laid out my outfit for the night before my first day of high school. Special attention was paid to emulate Benny. A blazer with shoulder pads, big hair, pegged pants and all three Swatch watches with swatch guards.

Drumroll please….

There is was – my failed venture at a resting bitch face. Yes, I was as anti-climactic as Andie’s trash bag prom dress.

My best attempt at Benny replication was about as pathetic as Andie’s entire stupid life. But don’t take my word for it, let’s see what Benny herself has to say about my attempt:

 

*I refuse to accept that the man who calls himself James Spader is actually the same actor that played Steff. And if you bring it up, I may pull out my inner Benny Hanson.