This is Day 13 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why here.

I was always a precocious child in ways that would annoy a grownup, but keep me from getting into any serious kind of trouble.

Loved Dover sole almondine, for example, but never developed a taste for setting things on fire. Cultivated a girlhood crush on Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde but remained a virgin until the embarrassingly late age of 19. (Saddest of all? Not for want of trying to GIVE the damned thing away.)

Those sorts of things.

From eighth grade through high school, which I attended at the height of the sexay 'seventies (1974 - '79), I became obsessed with Elsa Peretti. Obsessed! I'd cut out pictures of Tiffany ads for her stuff, devour any article about her that came my way (this was pre-Internet, remember) and drool at the tiny windows of Tiffany's on Michigan Avenue. Anytime I made lists of stuff I wanted, things like "Elsa Peretti pendant" or "Elsa Peretti coke spoon" inevitably ended up there alongside "unstructured linen jacket with sleeves I can push up," "alligator shirt," and "car." (Kidding, I did not do coke until shortly after I lost my virginity. I mean, never.)

At some point between 8th-grade graduation and my 16th birthday, my mom gave me the Elsa Peretti bean necklace I'd been long coveting. I wore it pretty much every day for the next five years, the above is a shot of me in either the Senior Lounge or the cafeteria of Evanston Township High School in 1978. (The shit-eating grin is courtesy of having had my braces removed, FINALLY, after 2+ years of suffering. And I do not exaggerate: my dentists now have all confirmed that the principle reason for my ridonkulous rate of gum recession was the way-too-aggressive moving of my toofs in my 'teens.)

I still like the pendant, but I like the idea of passing it along to the next happy owner even more. Is it you, perhaps? Someone you know? Email the 'tater: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com.

xxx
c