I grew up in a small town on an island floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. To say that I lived an isolated existence would not be far from the truth. Popular trends, such as MC Hammer pants, jelly shoes and Members Only jackets took a while to catch on in Hilo, Hawaii.
Fast-forward 25 years. As fate would have it, I happen to live in another small town, roughly 5,000 miles away from the one where I grew up. Only now I am the parent of 6-year-old daughter and I no longer have winged hair ala Farrah Fawcett.
Whereas I often complain about living in a small town, away from the glitz and glam of big city life, every so often I relish our existence in rural Wisconsin.
Believe it or not, there are benefits of being a small town mom, chief among them: no Silly Bandz brouhaha.
Yes, you read correctly. There is actually a town in North America that hasn’t been caught up in the latest fad featuring colorful silicone bracelets that come in every shape possible, from Buzz Lightyear, crazed cats, and distorted dolphins to vengeful-looking vultures, yaks and zucchinis. Personally, I think they look like Salvador Dali oil paintings-—dreamlike interpretive blobs that can be worn around one’s wrist.
The funky novelty jewelry is the newest must-have item for elementary school kids. Priced at about $5 for a pack of 10, recent news reports claim that stores from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, can’t keep them in stock. Apparently, national news reporters don’t survey small towns in Wisconsin, because the rubber band bracelets are readily available where I live, only none of the kids around here seem the least bit interested in them.
Compare that to Long Island, New York, where more than a handful of Silly Bandz-obsessed kids had to be rushed to the hospital because they were wearing so many of the neon-colored rubber band bracelets their circulation was cutoff.
According to news reports, schools around the world have banned the Bandz from class because the fanaticism they generated got to be too much for administrators to handle. Fights broke out on school playgrounds from tanked Silly Bandz trades and a kid in Rhode Island had a panic attack so severe she had to be rushed to the ER when one of her 45 Silly Bandz went missing in gym class.
Meanwhile, my daughter has absolutely no clue that a Silly Bandz craze exists.
Sheltered from the Silly Bandz rage… I guess it’s just one of the benefits of living in a small town.