It was the summer of 2009, and I was bored out of my mind. I didn’t have a cell phone yet, and my brothers were refusing to share the only computer our household owned — I was successfully thwarted again. Usually, I would stick pretty close by to ensure I got at least a little bit of time to play my favorite Disney Channel game (Zach and Cody’s Tipton Trouble, if you know you know), but then they started watching Fred videos on YouTube with the volume all the way up, and I think at that moment I finally understood what a migraine was and why my mom would yell at us to be quiet when she was having one. But as I got as far away as I could from that horrid voice, I found myself in my mother’s room, where the air smelled like Viva La Juicy by Juicy Couture — mainly because I decided to douse myself in my mom’s bottle of it. See, I had long decided that if my mom wouldn’t buy me the hot pink velvet Juicy Couture tracksuit with the bedazzled “Juicy” on the butt, then I had to at least smell like what I thought the girls wearing them did. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best look for a 12-year-old girl — hindsight is 20/20, though! Shortly after drenching my Bobby Jack shirt in perfume, my mother came out of the shower and, after yelling at me again for wasting her perfume, condemned me to one of the worst fates imaginable: accompanying her to the grocery store for the big weekly haul.
Although I walked into that Vons smelling like a Y2K diva, I did not feel like one. I knew I was going to be in that store on my feet for hours. Now, you may be wondering why the heck we would spend so much time in the grocery store. Well, that’s because grocery shopping took A LOT longer after 2008. We, along with many others in this country, felt our pockets tighten after the recession, so my parents had to get creative where they could, and one of their solutions to save money was coupons. So many coupons.
However, today I decided I’d had enough. I don’t know if it was all the Viva La Juicy that went to my head, but I decided I was not going to star in another episode of Ultimate Couponers. While my mom was sorting through one of her many stacks of coupons, I decided to slip away — a very brave move, considering I was under direct orders not to leave her side. As I aimlessly wandered through the aisles, I stumbled across an area of the store we never really passed. Suddenly, my line of sight was flooded with images of Justin Bieber, Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, and practically everyone else on Disney at the time. I was in heaven. I started rapidly flipping through all the magazines because I knew this glorious moment was fleeting. But then I was stopped in my tracks — not by my angry mother, but by a little magazine called Teen Vogue. Selena Gomez was on that issue’s cover, and I absolutely had to have it.
So, in order to secure my new prized possession, my clever little mind came up with a flawless plan: I was going to subtly and swiftly rejoin my mom, and when her back was turned, sneak the magazine into the basket. Simple enough, right? Well, it was — until we had to unload the cart onto the conveyor belt. All of my begging was fruitless; my mom was only buying things she had a coupon for, and to my surprise and horror, not a single coupon in all of her stacks was for Teen Vogue. I had to kiss my dream of owning the June/ July 2009 issue of Teen Vogue goodbye. That day I decided I was going to accompany her on every grocery trip to sneak in reading sessions until I could afford to take one home with me. Every grocery trip after deepened my love for all things fashion and beauty, and as soon as I could, I subscribed to the monthly issue of Vogue — and I haven’t looked back since.
Note: Now that I have found this cover — I once again realize hindsight is 20/20 because I do not remember the cover being this problematic in its wording and I am slowly realizing how many things my mom may have been right about.
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