Yes, We Have No Bananas

Like most children of the 80s I relished in fashion. I was over the moon when my grandmother gave me a pair of parachute pants for my birthday. The more flaps and zippers, the better. Pastel pink and gray? Hooray!

However, around 7th grade I shed my Madonna bracelets and tossed out my hot pink, lace hair bows for something a little darker. I pioneered the wedge haircut (a la Human League) in my middle school and I discovered black eye liner. Whatever said, "I don't give an ef what you think about how I look" I wore. I stirred up quite a controversy in The Middle of Nowhere, Kansas. Tanya Carter even had her youth group pray for me.

Tanya Carter became a lightening rod for my middle school angst. She was popular even though she was a bit trashy. She was a bit of a bully, but all bark and no bite. My friend B- and I were the only kids in school that stood up to her. For 30 minutes each morning in homeroom, it was all out war.

Our hatred for all things Tanya Carter morphed into a blind rage against banana clips - her favorite hair accessory. Tanya Carter wearing one every single day with venus fly-trap bangs glued to her forehead by that stinky Aussie Sprunch Spray was reason enough to dis the banana clip, but it was also the prop they used to create Geordi La Forge's "visor" on Star Trek The Next Generation. What a paradox of pop fashion! You put the geekiest of Star Trek accessories in your hair??


(I dunno why someone took this photo, but I found it on Flickr too. Tell me that doesn't look evil!)

To this day, the mere mention of a banana clip makes me cringe. Of all the things 80s that are making their way back on the runways these days, it's the one thing I cannot stomach. Bring back black and white polka dots. I've always been a stripes kind of girl. I have to admit, I even like leggings with bubble skirts. But I cannot condone the wearing of a banana clip. No way. No how.

To my horror, I saw a woman wearing one on the train the other day. Her hair snaked down the back of her head like an electrocuted poodle. She teased her bangs because there's nothing else you can do with them. I lost my breath. My heart quickened. Thinking she might just be horribly out of fashion, I scrutinized the fake tortoise shell paint on the surface of the clip. No chips. No evidence of pealing. It was new. *gasp*

Take a stand, my dear readers. Just say no. No to the banana clip. Do not let it clasp it's easily-breakable little tines over your organically-shampood locks. You have the power to stop this insidious trend in its tracks.

Just say no.