Today I saw a woman in downtown Seattle with a banana clip in her hair. And she wasn’t a hipster. She was probably around 40; just someone who graduated high school and thought, “Hey, that’s about as good as it’ll get.” Yes, the banana clip was coupled with a mall perm and fluffy bangs. She may, in fact, have been from Spokane, or in town from Eau Claire for a conference. I expected to see lavender stirrup pants, high-top Reeboks and one of those flowered/collared shirts with long tails, as well, but instead all I got was a lousy banana clip and no full-on embrace of what I wore for my third-grade picture (along with an Oreo cookie necklace won at the Polk County fair and harbored sneakily in my backpack. Not so sneaky when you get the proofs).

Oh please, please, please, let’s not let this trend come back! But I know it will. Has. Someone in Williamsburg is wearing one out right now. My brother may know her. Or him.
I’m old. But you know what? I don’t wear banana clips. They hurt and make you look a little like a horse.