Butterfly Clips
Every girl wore these, but I considered it poor form unless you looked like your head was being swarmed by a flock of rabid plastic moths. There's no way I was leaving the house without having at LEAST 26 plastic clips scattered throughout my hair. As if I needed one more thing to make my forehead look like a five-head, let's pull back all my hair, 5 strands at a time, and expose my scalp in the process. Also, some girls made this classy by at least having a rhyme or reason as to where they placed the clips. I was utterly uninterested in this concept.
My mom actually pulled the car over one day on the way to school and was like "I cannot do this, you look like a lunatic" and took them all out.
Magic Eye
This was exactly what I needed, given my constant battle with a lazy eye that I "corrected" when I was about 3. Why don't we put a bajillion dots in front of Ainsley, have everyone say "OH MY GOSH I SEE IT!" and then turn to me, with my right eye going haywire and me saying "Is it a castle?!". First off, lesson learned, it was always a fish of some sort. Second, if you just looked at the bottom of the page in tiny writing it said what it was. To this day I've never seen the pictures people are referring to. Also, I'm not dying to bring back the eye patch to correct my lazy eye because I tried to see a dolphin in 3-D.
Dancing
Um, the last thing my awkward body knew how to do was dance. But the 90s knew that, and decided "Let's throw Ainsley a bone and choreograph everything for her". Mission accomplished. I was FAN-TASTIC at the macarena. Also, mambo #5 and the electric slide? Come on, I was set in 3 genres of music. To better expand my skills when those three specific songs weren't on, my friend Nicole (who embraced and supported my dorkiness) and I would video tape Backstreet Boys and NSync and learn every single move.
At no moment in my adolescence did I ever consider how extremely awkward it was to be doing a group choreographed dance by myself. I was practically Michael Flatley, Load of the Dance, and I was simply doing just way more complicated moves than everyone else around me.
Fashion
Every decade of fashion is embarrassing 10 years later. I feel flat out victimized by the 90s fashion. I trusted that if it was available to be purchased and worn, then it should be. For starters, I wore shoes that likened the type of orthopedic support people with one short leg require to walk without tilting- but I wore those on both feet.
Slap bracelets- these were like contraband in school. Apparently one child that single-handedly disproves Darwin's survival of the fittest theory broke their arm completely off putting these on one time and after that you'd be in less trouble if you were caught with crack cocaine than if they found a slap bracelet on you. Lucky for my coolness, my sister could MAKE slap bracelets. No clue how, but my sister being cooler and older than me was my social saving grace.
Overalls- I got it in my mind that this was the most popular thing you could wear. a bag made out of denim that would support you if you doubled your body weight. When we had a talent show in 4th grade, I was rudely kicked out of my original group - doing the dance from the Brady Bunch Movie. It's like these girls didn't know that choreographed dancing was my passion. So instead of letting it get me down, I did my own talent at the show. Unfortunately, I had also happened upon Star Wars with my dad earlier in the year and was convinced everyone else loved it as much as I did. So why question it - I played the theme song from Star Wars on the piano and rocked my overalls in the process. No one got it - I was ahead of my time, I'm convinced.
