Beginning of the school year

This week was the first week of classes, which means that not only the campus, but my grocery store and the surrounding neighborhood just got a whole lot blonder and tanner. The native population of Austin is not immune to the allure of the tanning bed and the peroxide bottle, but suffice it to say, we are less enthralled than our neighbors to the north (Dallas/Ft. Worth), east (Houston), and the west (Odessa/Midland). No, the locals are far more likely to be frightfully pale with hair dyed black or purple or something like that. Or, if they are tan it's the hard-won tan of the outdoorsy types that proliferate and it won't be accompanied by peroxided hair. But the beginning of the school year means that once again we get a flood of coiffed and tanned teenagers from The Rest of Texas, girls who think that college means getting up early, doing your hair and make-up and wearing something fashionable all day long.

This year it's particularly bad, and I blame the person of one Paris Hilton. For some reason, her style, which is based around frightfully skinny and soon to be leathery legs poking out of her teeny tiny miniskirts, has captured the imagination of adolescent population of Texas. My friends and I thought it was bad over the summer when it seemed like 6th Street suddenly turned into a sea of deeply tanned legs. But now there are so many puffy micro-minis around that campus is beginning to resemble the famous Bee Caves pink flamingo farm.

I have nothing against the mini-skirt. I have a number of them myself, though I know better than to graduate to the micro-mini. If nothing else, the age cut-off for the micro-mini should be 19 years old. Had I known this when I was younger, I might have experimented more with wearing a micro-mini, but the brief window of its acceptability has long passed. The alarming thing is that so many girls seem to feel that they have to be "on" all the time. I realize these things tend to go in cycles, and we are probably at a peak in the cycle of super-fashion. This too will pass and teenagers will go back to dressing to alienate adults.

Still, I have to admit it's alarming to see so many young women who think it's absolutely necessary, even though they have just passed 18, to spend hundreds of dollars a month on tanning beds and hairstyling and manicures, not to mention the time commitment that goes into those things plus the elaborate make-up job that seems required. And I know that they think it's mandatory--they have to think this as no sentient human being could want to wear anything resembling a full face of make-up in Austin weather. (Today's forecast: 98 degrees and 84% humidity.) Make-up begins to melt off your face within moments of stepping outside, never mind the 15 minute walks to class on the huge campus. The amount of touch-up required is astonishing.

Luckily, these things have a pretty short shelf life. The blonde mini-skirt brigade will break up; some will join sororities and spend more time sticking to frat row, some will drop out, and most will assimilate. By the end of the first semester, if historical trends play out, seeing students in pajamas on campus will become more common than seeing runway fashion at 8:00 AM.