Poncho

One morning in fourth grade my classmate Lisa Mansfield sashayed in wearing a poncho. I’d never seen one before and marveled at it. Was it a scarf? Was it a sweater? On top of being an engineering miracle, it swung to her hips, was adorned with buttons and fringe and even had two slits for her hands. It was the color of buttermilk. With every swing of her pom poms Lisa rose through the ranks, and by day’s end she was in mortal danger of social ascension.

I rushed home and demanded a poncho of my own, knowing full well the futility of such a request. Ours was a purely functional situation. Gifts were dispensed at birthdays and Christmas, and other than those two days any swag received came from those who didn’t know any better (aunts or uncles who did not know the rules) or our own tiny allowances. My lack of financial savvy never allowed me to save up for anything larger than a pack of Bazooka.

Even while asking, in the space before my mother’s eyebrows went up, there wasn’t any real hope in it. I didn’t even wait for the “no” but simply bleated my futile request, more as a matter of formality than anything, and retreated to my shared bedroom.

Amongst other immigrant traits (including photographing every new piece of luggage) the knack for sewing had followed my mother into the new country like a cold virus and inflicted its results on us. She collected Butterick and McCall patterns and showed them to us. “Aren’t they nice?” she asked, but the question was purely rhetorical. We knew that shortly there would mysteriously appear from the fabric pinned to the tissue two new dresses, the wearing of which would set us further back on the school social hierarchy. And there was nothing we could do about it. We walked the earth like the scary hallway twins from “The Shining”, except we weren’t scary at all. We didn’t even have that going for us. 

Now I listlessly began to pick at the laundry I had been tasked to fold in my bedroom, when suddenly I brightened. Pulling a homemade dirndl skirt from the pile I inspected it. Elastic waist, not too long. Yes, it would do.

I called out that I was going to the playground across the street and before the answering query regarding chores could come I skipped out and headed for the swings. I slipped the skirt over my head, allowing the elastic waist to bunch loosely around my throat (it was a fall print, with little leaves on it and no pom poms, but you take what  you can get) and arranged it neatly around my shoulders. I thought I looked pretty damn good.

There were two other girls on the playground. I walked right up to them and planted myself in an adjoining swing. They both stopped talking and stared. “Hi,” I said lightly, walking my feet backwards to initiate the first swoop. I let my feet go and started pumping to gain momentum. 

“Why are you wearing a skirt around your neck?” asked one of the girls. I laughed carelessly. 

“It’s not a skirt, it’s a poncho!” I, said importantly, pumping harder. They looked at each other and one girl mouthed “SKIRT.”

“It’s a poncho!” I insisted. “My mother made it for me, that’s why it looks a little different.” I stopped swinging so I could list its features. “See? It has pockets.” I awkwardly snaked my hands up from beneath the hem and parked them jauntily in the inset pockets, which were unfortunately located directly below my neck. The two girls rolled their eyes and moved away to the jungle gym. I swung a little more then decided to chalk it up as a failed experiment and went home. 

Lisa wore her poncho a few more times to school but a couple of weeks later Shelley Cobham came in with white go-go boots and that was the end of the poncho craze. Side note: go-go boots are much harder to replicate at home. Suffice it to say that the tin foil did not go over big with the girls on the playground.