doug world.

So today I was at the mall and happened to wind up in a skateboardy type of store... in my pseudo-frantic "adult" life I seem to have forgotten that August is BACK TO SCHOOL month at the mall, so I was rubbing elbows with moms and their teeny weeny kids. And I'm serious about the teeny weeniness. Have you seen high school kids these days? I realize there's a big health crisis going on out there and childhood obesity is at an all-time high (1/3 kids are bigbodies these days... a special thank you goes out to: Philo Farnsworth, Sony, Frito Lays, Bill Gates, Laz-E-Boy and Little Debbie), but omigod, these kids made me feel like a giant! This was in part due to the fact that I was wearing heels (not to mention completely out of place in my "office-appropriate" dress/sweater), but also because I've just forgotten what kids look like during those precious pubescent years: Awkward.

There's really no happy medium for neither guys nor girls. They're either morbidly gangly or morbidly obese. It probably doesn't help that I compare people (in almost every circumstance) to the characters from Doug. For instance, every girl is either a Patty or a Connie. (Side note: I always discount Bebe because she was a huge biatch who no one liked because all she did was whine and flaunt her daddy's pocketbook--no one liked Bebe.) Patty was super gangly, the object of Doug's affection, and undeniably popular. Connie was a little chubbier, a little more shy, and too nice for her own good. I always thought Skeeter and Connie should hook up. Anyway... For guys, it's either Chalky (I think that's his name) the almost-jock or Doug, the epitome of a teenage guy. Who didn't love Doug, though?

As I was walking around feeling like Betty White in Loompaland, I encountered every single character from Doug. Mostly it was a bunch of Patty's in tiny tank tops and shorts that barely cover their not-yet-developed derrieres and Rogers in their trying-really-hard-to-be-badass skateboard brand tees and skinny jeans.

Standing in line I might have been eavesdropping on a conversation held by two teen guys buying a skateboard. There were sooo many "shit dudes" and words their mothers would smack them to the moon and back if they heard... I began to lose count. These guys were definitely Dougs. A group of Patty's walked by and the guys launched into their assessment of how girls dress. This was a real treat. They were talking about the fact that girls only have two looks: "They either go all out and look smokin' hot or they don't do anything to themselves and just look bummed out." I quickly did a once-over of myself and decided that I was closer to the smokin' hot category than bummed out, only because I was dressed up for work (default win). More often than not I'm a bummed out girl, according to the Dougs' standards... I consider this my contribution to the maintenance of sociological standards. If there were no bummed out people in this world, then how could these Dougs rate anyone higher? They would just accept the fact that every Patty was bummed out. They'd never have a chance to see a smokin' hot Patty (or Connie for that matter) or to see that a bummed out Patty can look just as good as a smokin' hot one, all things considered. It's just another one of my efforts toward the greater good. Small sacrifices create big return, people. I'm just another Patty in gym shorts.