not in the 'in crowd'

It's not easy to treat memories as imposters...today somebody said a nice thing to me at football,
they said 'I heard from my daughter that your boy is the hotest yet the coolest boy in the school...'
Nice...very nice...particularly for his blossoming ego...and them I was back in 1978...9 years old
and from a tatty council house...clad obviously in jumble sale clobber...(my parents are lovely
but they sometimes didn't pay attention) Anyhoo kids call poorer kids names which is appauling
for the subject....and I remember being so desperate to be with the cool set that I would pinch money to buy them treats
...and still get told to bog off!! ... how I ached to be one of the pretty popular well dressed sexy girls...instead of the
one with a homemade bowl haircut,silently raging against the stink of cheap cuts being tenderised in the pressure cooker
while the black & white burbled on (everyone else had a colour set!!)...and my heart's desire was to bring a friend into the house
and walk on fitted carpets like normal people did....because that's what we all want,to fit in...and when a sniff of this vulnerability is detected by kids (and many apparent grown ups)it's a blood in the water phenomenon..but now I'm almost grown up (42)
I know that most people in the world had it far far worse than I ever did...far worse...but I still nurse a secret anger
deep deep down...and then my boy cycles past on his expensive BMX in his superdry bits and pieces chatting into his blackberry...
and I'm so proud and glad...