Short Skirt, Long Jacket

 

Jennifer Yu

 

 

After stuffing my brains with knowledge of Communication, Controls, and Signal Processing and then force-feeding my eyes with 150 pages of text for my literature class, I leave the library dispirited and walk slowly home.  My mind has left my body and is hovering overhead, observing me go through the simple motion of placing one foot in front of the other on the sidewalk.  What seems to be an effortless action is actually a complex system of muscles, nerves, and electric impulses that culminate in a carefully rehearsed pattern, the perfected sloppy shuffle of my feet. 

 

Totally discouraged and ready to go to sleep, I enter my room and continue with my automated performance for my suspended self.  The first thing I do when I get back is to take out my contacts.  Since it also happens to be Sunday, I must add an enzymatic cleaner tablet to the storage solution.  I do this with an efficiency that would put any clock to shame.  I then drag myself to the bathroom sink and brush my teeth, returning to my room to Oxy cleanse my face.  I briefly toy with the idea of wearing my retainers but decide against it and leave them to hibernate peacefully in their protective plastic yellow case.  When I am done with this ritual, I indulge myself with the thought of falling asleep, but I know I have work waiting for me.

 

It’s two o’clock and my brain is still good.  I marvel at its ability to think, at its ability to perform under such adverse conditions.  However, those superior skills tend to annihilate their own greatness when the part of my brain that finds ways to procrastinate continues to be productive. My blinding intelligence formulates some complex string of logic that tells me it is okay to give up, and I begin to head for bed, but then I remember…I have Cake.

 

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond.

I want a girl who knows what's best.

I want a girl with shoes that cut and
Eyes that burn like cigarettes.

 

No, not cake the dessert, although I enjoy that also.  That kind of cake tends to appear on birthdays, which is when I will consume it, but for everyday pleasure there are Pop Tarts from the vending machine. I love the wax paper Pop Tarts come in, the satisfaction of snacking on not one, but two “pastries”, and the perverse pleasure of eating with a glass of cold milk, the half-sugar, half-fat snack not worth the 410 calories they contain.

 

As I listen to the song “Short Skirt, Long Jacket”, I realize that the vocalist for the band says the lyrics of the song in a way that can be barely classified as singing.  At this point in my life, though, it doesn’t really bother me.  I already know that my sense of value, which has been developing over the years, has become somewhat degraded and skewed by my American upbringing.  Last week, my friend gave me a freshly baked apple tart and asked me how I liked it.  I told him that the tart was pretty good, but I preferred the cookie he offered me the previous week.  I soon found out that my highly evolved taste had preferred slice and bake cookies from a tube when he began to make fun of my plebian tastes.  Common or not, I know what I like.  Give me Pop Tarts, slice-n-bake cookies, and Cake any day. 

 

I want a girl with the right allocations
Who is fast and thorough, and sharp as a tack.
She's playing with her jewelry, she's putting up her hair,
She's touring the facility and picking up slack.

 

I used to scoff at teenagers who went over their credit card limits, and I always believed I would be the type of person who could handle my money responsibly.  I held this view before I went to Florida for the summer and experienced the ritzy world of clubbing, shopping, and going to the beach.  On first exposure, I claimed that such things weren’t fun, but after being dragged out a couple of times by my roommates, I soon learned to appreciate such mind-numbing pleasures.  I realize that I only rejected these things earlier simply because they were different, and I didn’t want them to reject me first.  Stores that I never thought I would like—Banana Republic, Nine West, and J. Crew—became my friends.  I don’t spend more than I earn, but I have little or no concept of savings.  Dancing to loud music, looking good, and bonding with people of my generation in whatever medium of fun that is currently popular are things that I can only experience now.  Sometimes staying up until four in the morning with no other purpose than watching MTV music videos is more important than getting a good night’s sleep.

I want a girl who gets up early [Gets up early]
I want a girl who stays up late [Stays up late]
I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity, [Uninterrupted prosperity]
Who uses a machete to cut through red tape

            I am not embarrassed to take the elevator to the third floor when there are eight floors in the building.  I like bragging about how little sleep I get, and I sometimes put on makeup to emphasize my tired eyes.   I am guilty of frequenting Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles, and McDonalds, industrial giants that someone with cultural awareness might look down upon.  I like the security of being treated like anyone else in the crowd, being able to have a menu of 99 cent items, and having a fairly clean bathroom stop when I need it. 

 

With fingernails [Hey] that shine like Justice, [Ho]
And a voice that is [Hey] dark like tinted glass. [Ho]
She is fast [Hey], thorough, and sharp as a tack. [Ho]
She's touring the [Hey] facility and picking up slack.

I want a girl with a short skirt and a long, long jacket.

 

Am I the type of girl would wear a short skirt and a long jacket?  Maybe I will try it this Halloween.  Luckily Halloween is only a month away, so I probably won’t forget to rethink this thought.

I want a girl with a smooth liquidation. [Smooth liquidation]
I want a girl with good dividends. [Good dividends]
At Citi Bank we will meet accidently, [Meet accidently]
We start to talk when she borrows my pen.

 

Music transports me, and when I hear this song in my head, I walk through the halls with an extra beat to my step.  I like the brainlessness of being able to scream lyrics in the song right after the singer has said them. I know I am just mindlessly repeating words, but the simple formula and catchy beat is too appealing to ignore. 

 

She wants a car [Hey] with a cupholder armrest. [Ho]
She wants a car [Hey] that will get her there. [Ho]
She's changing her [Hey] name from Kitty to Karen, [Ho]
She's trading her [Hey] MG for a white Chrysler LaBaron.

 

 

 

It doesn’t matter that the words aren’t deep.  It doesn’t matter that I’ll probably be sick of this song within a week.  I know with a certainty, with the same fickleness that I switch between Pop Tarts to chocolate Twizzlers, peanut M&Ms to Skittles, or corn dogs to Ramen Noodles, that the overall trend of my tastes remains the same.  I am a product of American pop culture, and Andy Warhol was onto something with his silk-screened prints of mass-produced Coca Cola bottles and American icons.  I know he was trying to make some type of statement (or vehemently denying that he was) through his work, but I could care less about all that at this moment, and just enjoy the images.

 

I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket.

 

There is no algorithm for dancing, no set routine, no series of steps I have to take.  Eating bad food and not worrying about the consequences, listening to a “buzz song” which will only be popular for a week, buying things on whims, and subscribing to the popular trend of today is some kind of escapism.  In a way, it is a pleasure which is not of this earth.  I could finish this thought, and bring meaning or some type of higher awareness to all the things I have collected onto these white sheets of paper, but right now, for the next three minutes and twenty eight seconds, I will let Cake eat through my thoughts and with a non-deterministic and chaotic blend of motion, I will dance like a woman possessed. 

Na na na...