The Ashley Timeline of Coolness

I was recently watching that VH1 show, "I Love the 80s" and I about jumped out of my seat at some of the stuff they were showing and then I began thinking about all the things that I could not live without while I was growing up. And here's the list:

4 Years Old = Rainbow Brite



There will never be a toy cooler than Rainbow Brite. I STILL have all my Rainbow Brite dolls stored in my little rainbow carrying case and you can bet your ass I will never sell them on ebay so don't even ask.


5 Years Old = A Beginner Guitar

It's frst guitar in my life :) This is old guitar, my father buy it for me from a friend. I like it :) hehe

6 Years Old = Care Bears 

Yep, I had every Care bear movie, about 5 care bear stuff animals (AND CARE BEAR COUSINS). You could often find my brother and I outside fighting neighborhood bullies with the "Care Bear Stare". 

7 Years Old = Whitney Houston's self-titled CD

Most of my adult life I've spent trying to prevent my mom from showing the home movie of me standing on our coffee table singing "I Wanna Dance with Somebody", to my potential suitors. I'm pretty sure my success rate has been 0-1. 

8 Years Old = Caboodles

I was about 8 years old when I started experimenting with organization. Luckily the habit didn't stick and I still live in my own personal heaven of disorder, incoherence, and clutter. I blame my momentary laspe of chaotic filth adoration on the fact that I had a caboodle. I mean, shit, who WOULDN'T want to organize with that thing. Mine was more of a purple marble color and found it to be a useful place to store pencils, my brother's favorite matchbox cars, stolen tubes of lipstick from my mom's purse, what I thought to be a "wetnap" but what was actually an expired condom from my dad's sock drawer, and all kinds of other goodies that I referred to as "treasures". After about 2 weeks of collecting various items to put in my beloved caboodle, I decided to bury it and the treasures it contained in the woods behind my house (hence the term buried treasure). Sadly, I forgot where I buried it and then we moved. I never saw my poor caboodle again. 

9 Years Old = Hello Kitty!



When my family and I migrated to Virginia when I was in the 4th grade, I was aching to fit in with my new classmates. This could only be done by posessing one thing: a Hello Kitty! pencil box to keep in your desk. See, in Georgia we didn't have Sanrio Surprises (we didn't even have desks!). So when I moved to Roanoke, my parents got me the sweetest, biggest, pinkest Hello Kitty! pencil box ever made. I had my name painted on it with the dots at the ends of the letters. I had not one but 2 locks! I would have surely been a band geek in high school had it not been for that Hello Kitty! pencil box. 

10 Years Old = Quartz



When I was 10 I found (at the flea market) the coolest rock ever. It was purple and smooth and shiny and I was in love. You're probably thinking, ok, well what did you do with the rock? Well, my piece of quartz and I, we'd watch tv together, I'd lovingly toss her up and down while I talked on the phone, I would hold her up to the light and notice the mystifying translucence of my marvelous rock. We'd just hang out. Me and the rock. Yep. 

11 Years Old = my CD "single" of "Runaway Train"



Raise your hand if you wanted to run away when you were 11. Enough said.

12 Years Old = my cordless phone



All the dramatic events of my life unfolded on the telephone when I was 12. I broke up with boyfriends, had fights with best friends, spent hours and hours calling into radio stations trying to request Bon Jovi's "Always" in dedication to said boyfriends. I'm surprised I didn't develop some sort of tumor for having the phone attached to my ear so much. Actually...wait, I do have some sort of lump. Shit. 



Gotta go--phone's ringing.