Reformed Underachiever.

The tag attached to the over-the-knee socks I bought yesterday reads:

"Conveying a sophisticated sense of personal style, Passione is elegant, worldly and yet refreshingly relaxed. As at home with blue jeans and tennis shoes, as a black dress and pumps, Passione begs you to leave behind the 'I can't' mind set of the past, to live like never before. Open your heart to a love affair of possibility revealed in the romantic Italian inspired designs that are uniquely Passione."

I know now that you're seeing this knitted wonder, you're saying to yourself, Yes -- I want to date it.

Or perhaps you are saying to yourself that it's time to abandon proper usage of commas and hyphens, to go ahead and make mindset two words -- just like that! Because all of a sudden, you're feeling as though you can live as never before, except for that brief period in the 1980s.

To you, this item indeed evokes a love affair of possibility -- possibility that you can recapture your youth by donning the same type of footwear you would have worn in fifth grade; perhaps even the possibility (dare I utter it?) that we may have been right about leg warmers.

You find yourself opening your heart to the idea of paying $22 for socks, because they are called legwear, and because you have had such a hard time finding anything else remotely wearable in Bloomingdale's today. You're ready to put all those unromantic and emotionally stifling socks behind you. Who knows: Maybe you will even wear them with pumps. You might do anything now!

Well. That's what happened to me, anyway.