WTF Is Going On With My Hands?

The other day, rummaging in Places I Probably Shouldn't Rummage, I came across this photo.

I am 16 and wearing pearls.

This picture was taken in 1985, on my school Muck-Up night. I was 16 years old and dreadfully excited. I was also, I now appreciate, dreadfully dressed. Whereas some other 16 might go for a 'Good Girl Goes Bad' look to celebrate their high school graduation, I was geared more towards the 'Medical Receptionist meets Flower Child'. Perhaps it was deeply fashionable in some very niche circles, but I suspect the niche was made up solely of me.

I was terribly fond of my salmon pink shirt and its matching, calf-length white skirt. Sadly, the photograph does not do justice to the brocade-like print, or the high polyester count of the fabric. Happily, though, you can appreciate the string of pearls, so effortlessly (read: carefully) slung around my neck.

As for the smudge on my cheek, no, it was not a hideous birthmark that I have since had removed in a painful but ultimately rewarding surgical procedure. It was a flower, that I had begged my mother to paint on my face. Despite my profoundly conservative attire (and the fact that it was the 80's, and I was a decade too late), I fancied myself as a bit of a hippie. My lovely mother acquiesced, so it is she who is responsible for my completely idiotic appearance.

But all of that pales into significance next to my hands. Because... what the fuck is going on with my hands?

This is not the kind of gesture nice medical receptionists make

I got such a shock looking at this picture. I am making an obscene gesture with my hands! Presumably I wasn't aware of it, but still! I can't believe it! It is like listening to a Taylor Swift album backwards and hearing Satanic messages, or finding your sweet five year child old planning monstrous acts of evil (except that I do find my five year old planning monstrous acts of evil, but you get the idea).

So honestly, people, I have no idea who I am in this picture. A flower child? A medical receptionist? A naughty, naughty girl? Or just a confused 16 year old who paired a salmon shirt with a rude gesture and still passed it off as sweet?

Whoever I am, though, I am glad those days are over. For one thing, I don't wear polyester anymore.

And for another thing, if I'm going to make a rude gesture, I'm going to make damn sure I know I'm doing it.