What A Rank Amateur You Are!

lovelife

“When a man asks you for your first college weekend, it’s a big deal.”  So begins the article in one of my 1958 Good Housekeeping magazines.  Pardon?  What’s a “college weekend’?  Is he taking her to a college where she’s never been?  Does he attend that college?  If it’s her “first” one, does that imply many will follow?  I’m so confused.  Reading further adds no clarity.

“Nothing marks you as a greenhorn more quickly than arriving at the ivy-covered stations with bulging bags.”  The station?  Like a train?  Certainly not a Greyhound Station.  Is it located near an Ivy League college?  (BTW, a greenhorn is a novice.  Nothing like a longhorn, or a Foghorn Leghorn.)

lipstick

The rules also say, “The greatest threat to a return engagement is getting gay (read, garrulous) or daring (read, dizzy)…”  And if you DO CHOOSE to get gay or daring, “it proves nothing at all except what a rank amateur you are.”  Yeesh!  Rank amateur?  So harsh! So complicated!  I think I’d just bow out of the entire weekend altogether.

The whole thing reminds me of MIss Mona’s no-no rules from The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas:

And please don’t show us no tattoos
No hearts and flowers on your thigh
It’s downright tacky
Brands belong on cattle and that ain’t what we’re selling at Miss Mona’s

Maybe that’s why I never got a tattoo; I didn’t want to upset Dolly Parton.  Plus, if it’s trashy on a Chicken Ranch whore,  how does it look on a common non-prostitute?

dolly2The ladies all sing, “Just lots of good will, and maybe one small thrill, but there’s nothing dirty going on!”  Hmmm.  Maybe THAT’S a college weekend?

3 thoughts on “What A Rank Amateur You Are!”

  1. Everything written before 1965 reads like it is in some kind of code. How twisted were we by the fact that Best Little Whorehouse was part of our seminal (pun very much intended) cultural development?

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    1. well-put! i was 10 when i saw it on the big screen (even younger for Rocky Horror; talk about seminal). my son is 10 and i cannot FATHOM taking him to see that now. i just thought it was such a farce at the time.

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      1. I regret to say my thinking was probably more along the lines of “Look at the pretty girls having so much fun! All those boys like them so much!” So yucky, even without getting into human trafficking. Ugh. As unnerving as skin and sex are in movies today, it is NOTHING compared to what PG got away with “back in the day.”

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