To Be Young Again?

My sister-in-law sent me a picture of this "redneck tank top" yesterday, and it got me thinking about being young and how my cousin Melanie and I used to stretch the necks of T-shirts and then wear them upside down as we paraded through Myrtle Beach, sneaking eyeliner and pretending not to be twelve. Ah, homemade clothes and dirty bras--I can think of few things that epitomize the transition from girl to woman more for me.
A few weeks ago I sat having tea with a very young woman (early twenties), and I was so charmed by the dirty bra strap that hung loose from her wife-beater that I wanted to grab her and say, you know, I used to be young! I haven't always been this pregnant woman with a tea-cozy and a sugar bowl. I too wore dirty bras!

Instead, I arranged watermelon on a pretty blue plate and stuck toothpicks into the sweet, pink cubes. Lord knows we wouldn't want sticky fingers.