NO WAY

I hear you, Mrs. Reagan. Watch my lips. I’m just saying “No.”

“No” to something that can ruin a woman’s life.

“No” to something that can destroy her self-esteem.

“No” to something that can erode her dignity.

I’m saying “no” to miniskirts.

Of course they’re back. My God, what isn’t? There are well-heeled people out there actually paying good money to eat meat loaf, in restaurants that have cloth napkins. MTV covered Spam’s 50th birthday party; can homage to Velveeta be far behind? No perversion and no reversion seems to be impossible these days.

So pulling the stake out of the heart of the miniskirt was inevitable.

Naturally, they tell you everyone’s wearing one. They said that about Nehru jackets too. They say you’re fusty and drab if you don’t.

People at parties will turn and stare at you en masse if you enter the room with covered shins. Remember, we’re talking about a garment that was measured by rule of thumb: If you stood at attention and your thumbs did not reach the hem of your skirt, the skirt was too long. We’re talkin’ ‘bout my de-g-g-generation.

I haven’t gotten too old for miniskirts--just too smart. (Trust me, it’s the New Math.)

Now, I never have been fond of trousers, and I’ve owned, in my lifetime, perhaps three pairs of jeans, all for grubbing around in crawl spaces or laying concrete. If anything was going to be grabbing at my thighs, I said, it would have to be something a lot more interesting than a yard of denim.

I feel better in skirts. But miniskirts were burdensome enough for someone with good legs, as mine happily are. In the bad old days, women with legs like Secretariat’s, or knock-knees or bad thighs or nonexistent ankles, were stuck. They often got badgered or booed into wearing pants. It was tyranny in the midst of democracy.

But it’s 1987, and isn’t freedom of choice a marvel? Women can now choose to get cosmetic knee surgery to be able to wear miniskirts. God forbid anyone should step out on the streets with knees that look like the boles of maple trees.

Every generation needs to make its own mistakes (except of course the one in charge of the nuclear bomb). Miniskirts were one of ours. But we also wore them because we weren’t supposed to. They shocked people. They made moms gasp. They made dads gasp, often for different reasons.

They don’t shock any more. And when every rag-trade ad from Mad Ave, the marrow of the Establishment, declares for the mini--that alone is reason to avoid them. Power to the people: You have nothing to lose but your dignity.

The big selling point for the mini was its link to youth, fun and especially freedom --all those carefree modern women taking long, coltish strides that looked so good in the commercials for moderately priced colognes.

It was an illusion. The worst thing about the miniskirt was that, just like a whalebone corset or a hobble skirt, you were always conscious of it, which to my way of thinking is the definition of bad clothes. It took as much maneuvering as a hoop skirt, and was as distracting to the wearer as to the watcher.

The mini tends to look best when its wearer is standing still, one hip cocked provocatively. Unfortunately, life cannot be lived with the stasis of a Vogue cover. For a lot of my friends, that pertly cocked hip now has a baby perched on it. No woman should be pressured to wear a skirt that has less fabric than her child’s diaper.

Think of cars--the searing burns on the backs of your thighs from vinyl upholstery heated to the texture of cheese fondue.

Now, think of getting out of cars. After the second or third date (depending on how quickly the fellow caught on), my standard diversionary tactic for climbing out of a bucket seat unwatched--

“Good Lord, look, isn’t that a UFO?”--didn’t work anymore.

Remember the goon squads who casually knocked your books or bags out of your arms, then leaned back to watch as you tried to collect your possessions without doing something the vice squad would frown on?

Do not forget, as a friend reminded me, those bosses who always asked for files from the bottom drawers, or the fellows who relaxed under open stairways. If traffic was slow, they might ring the fire alarm just to watch the pitter-patter panic of little skirts.

Surely you remember chipping your teeth on a drinking fountain, thanks to that Playboy Bunny swivel intended to lower you gracefully to the stream of water.

And for this, you took the pains to hike up your skirt in the morning, out of sight of your parents, and let it down again at night. Maybe you had to roll until you had a midriff like the Michelin tire boy--but hey, your legs looked great. Or at least bare.

I think any zest the mini held for me ended on the day when, as a very fledgling intern reporter, I came to work in an expensive blue wool miniskirt. It was my favorite. We all had our favorites; one colleague had a red-white-and-blue number, “very Tricia Nixon.” Another one had a plastic one, yellow as a yield sign.

I had worn mine to the office before. But this time, I was sent out to cover the funeral of a murdered Brownie scout. I went--hiding the whole time behind the photographer, so that the mournful little girls in white gloves, and the somberly dressed friends wouldn’t wonder who that tart with the notebook was.

Some of the stores where I shop assure me they won’t go overboard with minis. No class, said one manager. Our clients are bank executives and graduate students and lawyers, she said. They want to be taken seriously--just like waitresses and beauticians and bus drivers. Just like men.

It does , after all, come down to how good certain body parts are: your brain cells, not your legs.

Short live the mini.