Years: Some summer in the 90s
Place: Tortola, BVI

#BestSummersEver #Tola #BVI

Like I said in a previous post, the best summers of my life started in 1993. I would be shipped on a boat to Tortola with my aunts to spend the summer with family and I would stay there until whichever parent decided to take me back home when they came over for August Festival. That was of course until I was old enough to go back and forth on my own. Because you know island kids did that. 

This particular summer, which I’m starting to think was the first summer, but my memory isn’t strong enough to narrow down the year, Carnival time was in full swing. My aunts and their friend had the bright idea to dress me and their friends brother in matching outfits. We had the flannel top, jeans bottom with the matching string, and if I can remember even the shoes matched in color.

We were basically twins except for one thing. My outfit top and string was pink and his outfit top and string was blue. Because apparently all girls like pink and all boys like blue.

I don’t know where the outfit came from but there was a snag in their plans to dress us alike. One of our shorts didn’t fit. So much so that we couldn’t walk down the street in them because either of our mothers would have a fit if they heard that her child was walking around Tola with clothes that don’t fit.

The Switch Up

My aunts and their friend then had another bright idea: the boy* and I would switch shorts. He was at first not having it. It was after all pink string throughout the waist line of the pants. They had to convince him that they would fold over the waist line to hide the pink so that no one would ever find out.

As I sit and type this now, I am laughing at the entire situation. Like, it wasn’t that deep. I could’ve put on a regular jeans pants that belonged to me and fit and I would’ve been fine. Or he could’ve gone home and got another pant. He seriously didn’t live that far. However, that would’ve ruined their teenage plans to have us walking around the village like the Bobbsey twins.

After much switching and altering and flipping and tightening, we were finally ready to go. Him with my now pink stringed shorts and me with the blue. I don’t know if anybody outside of those who were there ever had a clue that we wore each other’s shorts, but we matched nonetheless. All was well with the world and we headed down the street to wherever we were going.

Life is funny. I just remember a boy willing to wear some pink shorts (it was only the waist string, but I was a child and they made the situation feel so dire) so that we could spend the night in matching outfits. My young heart didn’t know much about love, but I knew he loved me then and if he would love me later is another story for another day………………….

*Names weren’t used to protect the innocent.

Did your parents, siblings, or elders try to always have you in matching outfits with someone else? Were you happy or pissed off that you didn’t get to wear what you wanted? Let me know in the comments.