I Call This Look…

Jamie first heard of the Misfits when her mom asked her older brother’s best friend Dan about their new punk band tentatively called The Grundles (they’d go through five name changes by the end of high school).

It was a Saturday morning and they were all in the kitchen. The boys were high and searching for snacks like ravenous monkeys, fueling up for their practice later that afternoon with Matt and Chubbs (real name Dale, but no one has called him that since he got fat in 5th grade). With one hand in a box of cinnamon toast crunch, Dan mumbled something like “the Misfits, but better.” Jamie’s mom nodded and smiled, but she had no idea what he was talking about — she’d only listened to Andrea Bocelli since the divorce a year before. Once the boys left, Jamie escaped to her bedroom and furiously googled the band with the dedication of an investigative reporter. She listened to Hybrid Moments ten times in a row and decided one day it would be her song with Dan, even though the lyrics were kind of creepy (“When new creatures rape your face” etc). The next day at Cherry Hill mall with Angela, she’d make an excuse to pop into Hot Topic and buy this shirt. She wouldn’t tell her best friend why until years later after their first semester at college, when they’d laugh about the story behind her favorite sleep shirt during one of their “classic” sleepovers. When she got home Jamie secretly washed the shirt three times in a row to try to make it look old, so Dan would think she was a longtime fan. She wore it every Saturday for the next month, but he never even glanced in her direction.