Plastic Braclets

It's rare that I've been on the upswing side of a trend.  Not since POGS, which I knew from their Hawaiian origin have I felt like I didn't jump on the bandwagon of a trend just as it was winding down.

My restaurant job can at times feel like high school and this past week we were hit hard by a trend that is otherwise designated for children.  Plastic shape bracelets.  You know what I'm talking about (or maybe you don't), on your wrist they look like simple plastic bracelets, but when you take them off they form shapes.

 My obsession, Neil Patrick Harris was wearing them on the Craig Ferguson the day after I was given my first one.  A pink kitty.  I have since purchased and traded more and now proudly wear my favorites on my wrist like a twelve year old girl.

It's strange to take hold of a fad that is no doubt reserved for those years younger than myself.  Yet my own peers also wear theirs with pride, sharing their own with glee and enjoying showing the shapes to one another. 

Who knows how long this fad will last?  It seems like it could be go the distance, such a clever basic idea!  But who knows.  Perhaps the preteens have already tired of their bracelets, leaving my restaurant (and Neil Patrick Harris) as the only people wearing them.  Or maybe when the children I know now as babies reach their preteen years, I'll be trading with them, a woman in her forties bonding with the preteens and talking about how I remember the early days of the bracelets.  Grasping onto the last fad that I connected with.

And now, it's time to get ready for work and decide which bracelets I'll be wearing today.  I'm thinking the yellow battle axe for a start.