Turtle Power

If you watched a lot of cartoons in the 90’s like me, then you were likely in love with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My love for these four “heros in a half-shell” bordered on infatuation, teetering strongly towards it.  My brother’s best friend exclaimed “you have the coolest sister ever!” because I often wanted to play turtle action figures with them.  I made turtle masks out of  paper plates and played with toy nunchucks. I played the video games, spouted the theme song at top voice, and hollered “Turtle Power” to anyone who would listen.  One thing I did not have was my very own Ninja Turtles t-shirt. My brother had one, several in fact. I longed to borrow one, but he wore them so often that this was nearly impossible. 

One day, I decided I was going to make my own t-shirt. I borrowed several Ninja Turtle trading cards (which were postcard size rather than baseball card size), and I taped them to my shirt. Not one, not two, but many. Most featured Michelangelo, my absolutely favorite turtle. I thought I looked amazing. My mother thought I looked likely to get picked-on, but she didn’t try to stop me. She kept her mouth shut and drove me to school.  Nobody made fun of me. I’m sure some of the girls probably sniggered, but I didn’t feel out of place. And as we lined up to go down the hall to art class, my best friend (a boy) commented that it was just like watching T.V. on my back!  I thought that was awesome!  Nevertheless, when I got home, my mother had decided to take me to the mall to buy my very on turtle tee so I wouldn’t have to repeat this card-taping.  Of course, it was the 90’s so the shirt I picked happened to be neon.

My other fashion habit was wearing all one color, also neons. I had neon blue, neon green, neon orange, neon pink, neon yellow. And I only wore skin-tight clothes, mostly bike shorts and t-shirts, and of course stirrup pants and paint-splatter jeans...but the jeans weren’t part of my one color obsession. The one color obsession came from playing Rainbow Brite, which is something I did all the time. Rainbow Brite wore all the colors of the rainbow, but her friends each had their special color. I played Shy Violet, Buddy Blue, Indigo, and Red Butler by donning a different color each day. Sometimes I could convince a friend to join me and we’d run around the park fighting off Murky and Lurky as Patty O’Green and Lala Orange. 

The last cartoon I emulated was Penny from Inspector Gadget. Penny wore a red and white striped shirt, which I did not own myself. I became Penny by wearing a pink t-shirt over a long-sleeved white shirt.  There wasn’t much acting or playing involved, except perhaps checking my watch often.  I simply was Penny, so I told people at school that was my name.  My classmates and teachers of course knew that I wasn’t Penny, but kids waiting for the bus or for their parents to pick them up after school didn’t. And what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them. Nor did it hurt me. I think all of these commitments say a lot about who I am today. I played hard and worked hard to make sure I was playing all the way! When my mom heard someone calling me “Penny,” she scolded me for lying to people, but I assured her, I was only playing. I’d set them straight later. Though, I’m sure I never did.