An Ode to a Goth - Impressive Showing

When I was a punk-ass teenager hanging out on Coventry, the local gathering for high school kids of all varieties from around the east side of my city, I always got a particular kick out of the goth kids. Now Coventry was indeed a melting pot, you had the skateboarders, the punks, the jocks, the metal heads, the deadheads and the goths. In most cases there was a pretty healthy Venn diagram of interaction. I'd occasionally drop my skateboard to join the hacky sackers, the metal heads would often times share a ride to a show with the punk kids and so on. The poor goth kids however, always got an earful from everyone, even the freaking deadheads. Imagine a dude in a tie dyed shirt wearing socks with Birkenstocks making fun of you, yeah, you'd go home and listen to Bauhaus too.

Well this same scenario followed the goths to the clubs we all used to go to as well. But some of these goth kids really put some effort into the whole look. I'm talking some serious medieval times costumes complete with frocks, corsets and bustiers. Then the makeup, oh boy the makeup. Lots of pancaked white foundation and tons of eyeliner, think zombies from Dawn of the Dead (the original, ass). Sitting around watching these kids we'd always concoct shit that they did during the day, like what job they had. We'd picture a goth kid as a gas station attendant or a lawyer heading to work all 1672'd out. That actually became a challenge we'd pose to them when "discussing" their look. We'd all be like, "Dude, do you go grocery shopping like that?" Of course they'd be all like, "Fuck you, skater dick!" To which we'd all share a hearty laugh.

Oh man am I very excited to report that yesterday, a very wonderful and committed person actually answered that challenge my friends and I issued oh so many years ago. After work I dropped into my local Key Food to pick up my standard fare of chicken breast and Green Giant Broccoli in Three Cheese Sauce (have you guys tried this stuff? Holy shit is it good!) when I turned down aisle five and ran smack dab into the largest goth person I've ever seen, I'm talking 6' 5" and about 240, no shit. Man it was awesome! I'm still not certain if it was a man or women, and quite frankly, I don't even care. This person was wearing a black corset with a flowing black skirt and some serious platform boots. The kicker absolutely had to be the fishnet arm warmers that were anchored by this dude/chick's middle finger. Holy cripes was that awesome! I grinned, maybe even gave a little laugh. I only hope he/she didn't think I was laughing at him/her, rather I was chuckling at those conversations I had with my friends 20 years ago. I'm proud to report that we now know for a fact what these folks do during the day. The same damn thing we do! This guy/girl just had the balls (or not, sorry) to not give a fuck and maintain their goth cred. Fuckin' A great job!