Thanks to my parents’ amazing ability to plan for things and my own perfect sense of timing, I never got the opportunity to wear a ponytail jutting out from the side of my head. I was being born right as that look was at the height of junior high school girl fashion and I managed to hold off on growing enough hair for it until the fad fizzled away.
In a tragic twist of classic-looks-never-go-out-of-style fate, the side ponytail is back and it looks just as stupid as it did in 1974, except girls today don’t have the added benefit of wearing pastel high-waisted jeans and roller skates to complete the ensemble. Lucky me, I managed to get really, really old before the look came back so now I still have an excuse not to wear it.
Has anyone else somehow not noticed that a ponytail right behind your left ear simply looks like you started with a regular ponytail, but your mom caught you talking on the phone in the hall closet when you were actually grounded from using the phone and in real mom style simply reached into that dark closet, felt around for your head, and yanked you out sideways by the hair?
Do you ever see really stunningly beautiful women like Duchess Catherine (the future Princess of Wales, not that psychopath from Russian history) with a wad of hair asymmetrically wadded up and glued to the sides of their heads?
My fantastic good luck doesn’t end there. I narrowly missed Member’s Only jackets in the 80s and was already too grown-up for Punky Brewster-like knee-length high top Converse sneakers in the 90s. Just due to my own extreme good taste I never wore full eyelid neon blue shadow or lipstick that you apply by squeezing a small woodland creature all over your mouth like some deranged Disney movie evil villain.
In hindsight, I’m now really, really sorry that I looked down my nose on people a couple of years ago who were wearing their pajama pants as actual clothing. Now that my day begins at 4:30am and I fall into bed most nights after ten, I’m convinced those people are smarter than us all. By the time that look comes back into style, I’ll actually BE old enough to wear my pajamas all day from the comfort of my wheelchair.
Lorca Damon 
So sad that you really missed the fun times of IRONING your hair with, yes, a regular iron-your-clothes iron, and of course, rolling your hair on empty (usually) metal fruit juice or vegetable cans before nightie night.
Ugh, I wouldn’t have hair left if I’d done all those things!
Studies have shown that humans value symmetrical features when choosing a mate. (Really.) Maybe she’s just telling everyone not to fuck with her. Literally.
I’m going to take that to the next level. Don’t-fuck-with-me-I-mean-it cuz I have seven ponytails.
Babies in onesies–cute. 40 yr olds in Sponge Bob pajamas–creepy. Its like they escaped from an institution that had taken their clothes. And bunny slippers get REALLY filthy when you wear them to Walmart. Sort of a ” if Disney went into horror movies ” look. Ugh.
I like it – the sideways ponytail. She looks more approachable than someone with a plain ornery old straight down the back type of ponytail or (worse still) plaits.