Alright, so I was messing around the other day, trying to, you know, share a bit of the old magic. The topic? Cindy Lauper, and specifically, why she was, well, ‘hot’ back in the day. Not just, you know, looks-wise, but the whole energy, the style, the impact. I figured, how hard could it be to explain?
So, this was my little project. I decided I was gonna show my niece, who’s all into whatever TikTok dance is trending this week. My ‘practice’ was simple: dig out some classic tunes, maybe find a few old music videos on the internet, the whole nine yards. I wanted her to get it. Why Cindy was such a big deal, why she was so incredibly, undeniably ‘hot’ in the 80s.
I got everything cued up. Played “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” showed her some pictures of the outfits, the hair. The works. And what did I get? A blank stare. She kinda tilted her head and asked if ‘hot’ meant, like, if Cindy Lauper had a fever. A fever! I kid you not. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe it’s just a generation gap, or maybe my niece is just… unique. Bless her.
You know, this whole thing really got under my skin, and it reminded me of this other time, completely different situation, but same feeling. I was part of this volunteer group, trying to set up a community garden. Real feel-good stuff, right? And there was this one specific type of heirloom tomato everyone was raving about. It was the ‘hot’ item of the season, some fancy name like ‘Sunstone Ember’ or whatever. Supposedly the best tomato you’d ever taste, but super hard to find seeds for.
So, I took it upon myself. My ‘practice’ then was to track down these ‘hot’ seeds. I spent weeks, man. I was calling specialty growers, scrolling through weird gardening forums at 2 AM, the whole shebang. I finally found this guy, lived three hours away, who swore on his prize-winning pumpkin that he had ‘Sunstone Ember’ seedlings. Actual seedlings!
I drove all the way out there, full of hope. Visions of amazing tomatoes dancing in my head. I get to his farm, this dusty old place, and the guy, nice enough fella, scratches his head and goes, ‘Oh, the Sunstone Embers? Yeah, about those… my dog, Betsy, she kinda dug ’em all up last week. Thought they were a new kind of chew toy.’ Then he points to some sad-looking regular tomato plants and says, ‘But I got these plain ol’ reds, they’re pretty decent!’
Decent! I drove three hours for ‘decent’! And when I got back and told the garden committee, you think they understood? Nope. They were all like, ‘Well, did you ask if he had any other ‘hot’ varieties?’ or ‘Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.’ Like it was my fault Betsy the dog had a taste for expensive tomatoes. We ended up planting carrots. Carrots! Talk about a letdown from the ‘hot’ tomato dream.
So yeah, trying to explain ‘Cindy Lauper hot’ to my niece? It felt exactly like that tomato chase. You put in all this effort, you remember how amazing something was, how vibrant and game-changing. You try to share that special spark, that ‘hotness.’ And sometimes, all they see is a carrot. Or ask you if someone needs a thermometer.
Maybe some things, that kind of ‘hot,’ you just can’t really explain if you weren’t there. Or maybe I’m just bad at explaining things. Who knows. I’m still not sure if my niece gets Cindy Lauper, and honestly, I’m still a bit bitter about those tomatoes. Some ‘hot’ things are just destined to be misunderstood, I guess.
