Breakfast?

Can I just share with you something that annoys me to no end?
What’s up with people feeding their kids junk food for breakfast? Yo, people thought that Barack Obama was being all condescending when he was telling folks that we need to quit feeding our babies cold Popeye’s chicken in the AM. Well screw that because that man was on point. As my familiar readers know, I ride public transpo in Philly. I ride anywhere between 8 and 10am depending on the day. No matter how many times I see it, I’m shocked. Little kids who can barely get into the bus seat by themselves, clutching bags of barbecue potato chips and bottles of soda. Seriously?

I know for a fact that you don’t have to travel 2 blocks in Philly before you run into someone who will sell you some fruit, an egg sandwich, or even a friggin’ orange juice! Yes, I am judging here.

It concerns me because I know that that is not the only sub par meal that kid is getting that day. I know that habits are being formed where that kid will think it’s okay to eat random bullshit. I don’t have to tell you about obesity in our community or the onset of obesity-related disorders such as diabetes and hypertension. This is not really a commentary on being poor or low-income, either. I grew up poor and while as a kid I would have liked a bowl of gummy worms for breakfast, my grandparents weren’t going to let that ride. Even low-income people got cereal and milk (WIC, fool!).

The inspiration for this post: Today, I saw a chick on the subway. She’s a whole other story unto herself because she instantly reminded me of a Treasure Troll. Homegirl was white, short, fat and had FUSCHIA hair (with brown roots and jacked up ends). She had a lil’ biracial boy with her and they both were chomping away on some potato chips. You better believe that Barack Obama had breakfast, yo!

Remember bandanas as a universal accessory?

I don’t know if this happened anywhere outside of my bamma ass town, but we put a lot of money on bandanas. Not that bandanas are expensive – you could get them for a dollar. We just bought a lot of them. See from about 1993 to ’95, nearly everyone I knew owned a cadre of bandanas in every color imaginable. They had multiple uses and HAD to coordinate just so with your outfit. Some examples of how they were used:

• Tied around your head. This isn’t too hard to imagine as it’s a common way bandanas are worn. Think Tupac or Jennifer Lopez in her Diddy/Jenny from the Block phase.
• Tied around your ponytail. This is when you use your bandana in the same sort of way you would use a scrunchy. Roll that thing up and twirl it around the base. This was a particularly bad look when your ponytail was barely existent in the first place and your hair is overwhelmed by printed fabric. Oh, you can totally mix the two: ponytail as headband and as scrunchy but I don’t recommend it.
• As a pocket square. You MUST iron your bandana for this. Iron it and fold it in three sections then hang it out of your back or front pocket.
• Tie it around your ankle (because clearly, at this time wearing one pant leg up was acceptable).

We were so jacked up and didn’t even know it. What are some of your old school fashion no-nos?