Chatting with a freshman at a high school in an agricultural area of Northern California the other day, this column learned a lot of real interesting stuff about how the students there perceive themselves as belonging to different groups on the basis of their clothes. The hick, or farmer, clique wears tobaccojuice-stained Levis, cowboy boots, and flannel shirts, the rockers, or stoners, black concert T-shirts, parachute pants, motorcycle jackets, and long hair (and, presumably, sullen, menacing expressions) and her own group, the “freak shows,” Esprit and like sportswear. The preppies (hundreds of years ago, Southern California high school kids used to call ’em “socs”—pronounced “SOshez”—or “little rich assholes”) wear shirts with alligators or polo players on the breasts, the jocks letter jackets, and the goobs, or dorks (we used to call ’em “dipshits”) stuff that their mothers (we used to call ’em “moms”) bought on sale in department store (we used to call ’em “Sears” or “Penney’s”) basements.

To this column’s astonishment and dismay, the Northern California freshman’s school has no dress code. Which strikes this column as a real partypooping policy on the school administration’s part—how can a kid there break the rules if there aren’t any? Yea, verily. Do you imagine for a minute that Boy George would bother with all that eyeliner and lipliner and thisliner and thatliner if they didn’t inspire Barbara Walters to fly all the way over to London to ask him in a hushed, timorous tone if he’s really bisexual? What fun is looking scandalous, that is to wonder, if no one’s scandalized?