Shoe Inspection Time

Total embarrassment for someone else... Children are lucky because they can just cover their eyes and scream “Eeuuuwwww!”. Adults have to keep up a facade. My husband and I call it “Shoe Inspection Time” - when events are so embarrassing all you can do is look down at your shoes and wish yourself to the cornfield. Last night, I watched an awful movie from 1963. It wasn’t a beach movie, but close - set at a Palm Springs resort during college spring break. There were “kids” in swimsuits, all flirty and full of dance (the Twist must have been in its hey-day). These college kids looked like they were 45 years old, but according to my older sister’s yearbook, high school kids also looked that way. The girls had big hair, pointy-toed high heels, and dresses with big skirts and crunchy petticoats. In one scene, the comedy relief guy was singing poolside. A random girl in a swimsuit walked up behind him, did the Twist for a few seconds, then continued walking. It was weird, and extremely embarrassing. I immediately reverted to Shoe Inspection mode, when I realized I was watching with my dogs. I could cringe and maybe even guffaw a little and no one would care. Certainly not my dogs. These movies from the early 1960’s are so terrible. I wonder if people actually paid to see them in a movie theatre. The beach/surfer movies were a bit more hideous than the one I watched last night. There was always a blonde-haired girl in a fringed dress, dancing frenetically. Fringe gone wild! The surfing special effects were lacking. Just actors with perfect helmet hair, smiling while they tried to balance on their imagined surfboards. Puhleez!  There are a couple of beach movies on TV tonight. I’m not sure I can handle watching them... you can only do Shoe Inspection so many times without getting whiplash.