EXPRESS TRAIN TO YUPPIETOWN
Okay. Not to get all S.E. Hinton/The Outsiders on you, but a few weeks ago I was hanging out with a seldom seen college friend at a wedding and was totally insulted. My friend, Phil, is in the process of getting his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Florida and clearly considers himself to be an ultra-cool, underground hipster type. He mostly hangs out at bars that serve PBR in a can and spends his days in unwashed, overpriced t-shirts that say things like – ‘The Internet is Fun,’ etc. I never minded this, because I’d always assumed that I fit in with his hipster inclinations. Turns out I was wrong. On the Sunday after the wedding we were hanging out at a sports bar having lunch and watching the Iran/Mexico World Cup game. As we’re sitting there, I mentioned wanting to try some restaurant that had just opened and he instantly responded that it was for yuppie jerks.
“But I am a yuppie,” I said. JOKING.
He looked at me with a sad expression on his face and responded, “I know, Ems.”
He was serious and, in a terrifying moment of self-awareness, I began to wonder if maybe I really was a yuppie. So, I did the obvious and spent several hours googling the term on the Internet to determine whether or not I should descend into a dour state of self-loathing. Wikipedia had some extensive information on the subject and made the following points (like any good accountant, I’ve opted to perform an organized method of self analysis by highlighting the criteria listed below in green if it does appear to define a trait relating to me and red if it doesn’t.):
1. Yuppie is an acronym for ‘Young Urban Professional.’
Agreed. Totally me to a tee.
2. Yuppies are primarily composed of the Baby Boomer Generation.
Aren’t the baby boomers the generation conceived immediately following World War II, and, accordingly, all currently in their fifties and sixties? I get it that forty is the new thirty and etc., but can a sixty year old baby boomer really be considered a 'young urban professional'?
3. Yuppies are highly educated and economically upwardly mobile.
If you call highly educated a bachelor’s degree, I guess I could fall under this category. That could be stretching it, though. Don’t judge me. I’ll go back to get my master’s when I’m good and ready.
4. Yuppies are aged from early twenties to early to mid thirties.
Doesn’t this blatantly contradict point number ‘2’? Alas. Wikipedia. I’ll say it again. Alas.
5. Yuppies tend to hold jobs in the professional sectors.
Me.
6. Yuppies tend to be ‘work hard, play hard’ types.
I often use this exact phrase to defend my behavior to my parents when they worry out loud about my regular habit of drunk dialing them.
7. Yuppies tend to value material goods, and are supposed to have ‘bad taste’ in that they buy expensive things merely for the sake of buying expensive things.
How do you know if you have bad taste? Doesn’t everybody like his or her own taste? I like things nice and simple. I prefer Minimalism to Baroque. But that doesn’t make Baroque bad. People shouldn’t call other peoples’ tastes ‘bad.’ They should call them ‘different.’ The assholes that call other peoples’ tastes ‘bad’ are probably the same ones that start wars and do drugs.
8. Yuppies are known to have a love for Starbucks coffee, luxury automobiles, sports utility vehicles, development houses and technological gadgets.
I don’t drink coffee and don’t own a car or a condo/home. Also, my TV is eleven years old and I don’t have an iPod. BOO-YA! Perhaps I’m Amish.
9. Yuppies rely heavily on exorbitantly priced convenience goods and services.
Ouch. I do have my groceries delivered from Peapod. I also have a cleaning lady that comes every three weeks, and I did buy ice from the 7-Eleven down the street the other day. I’d assumed that these behaviors stemmed from debilitating laziness. I had no idea they may actually be a side effect of my social disability.
10. Yuppies have a certain air of informality about them, yet an entire code of unwritten etiquette can govern their activities from golf, tennis and lacrosse to luncheons at trendy cocktail bars.
For some reason, God hates me and gave me terrible hand/eye coordination. I don’t play or watch golf, tennis or lacrosse. Also, my lunches are typically consumed at my desk while reading the Internet.
11. Yuppies tend to be associated with city or suburban dwellers.
Makes sense to me.
It looks like based on the above criteria, I’m about 64% yuppie (having answered positively to seven of the eleven yuppie attributes). So fine, Philip. I am a f***ing yuppie. Happy now?
I can only assume that the remaining 36% of me is composed of nerd.
HIDING THE CRAZY
Lately I’ve been going through a very confusing phase of over analyzing gender roles and the hypocracy that still exists as a result of the women's lib movement, etc. Annoying, eh? I’ll have all of these conflicting, discombobulating thoughts that I’m forced to keep to myself so that people don't think I’ve suddenly gone off the deep end. I frequently have crazy thoughts/impulses, but I’m a firm believer in the fact that everyone suffers from those sorts of things. The difference between a crazy and sane person is that the sane person is able to control their impulses. Recognize that they are irrational and not vocalize or act upon them. I’m basing this theory upon pure conjecture. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention in the psychology course I took my freshman year of college. But it makes sense to me. So based on my layman’s theory, I think I’m okay. It’s just that my brain is really getting on my nerves right now. I think it might need a hobby.
I initially noticed this the other night while out for a couple of beers with my friend Ellen. She and I were at Wellington’s (a little neighborhood bar on Wellington and Lakewood) and as I was standing at the bar to order us a round, the bartender walked up to me and said:
“What can I get ya, Sugar?”
For some reason this totally made me melt. It’s weird because the bartender wasn’t particularly cute or anything. My brain apparantly just really liked being called ‘Sugar.’ Maybe I’m so starved for affection that I'm willing to accept it in any form from anyone. Including bartenders.
Yesterday, I walked up the street to the 7-Eleven to buy a soda and a guy that was painting the front porch of one of the houses along my route leered:
“Pssst … hey baby! Pssst!”
I refused to look at him and for some reason became enraged by the whole situation. I think it was mostly the ‘Pssst’ part. I mean seriously. Did he think I’d enjoy that? It made me feel dirty. Not dirty-good. Dirty-annoyed and angry. No way I was having sex with him after that display of bad manners. My anger seemed a little irrational, though. Why can't I just ignore his scuzziness?
On Sunday I went to a barbecue with Jack. The people throwing it were friends of his from childhood and so I hadn't met any of them prior to that evening. At one point some guy mentioned that he was glad that men don’t have to attend baby showers. This set my brain awhirl again and I became internally enraged at the fact that guys don’t have to deal with the whole shower scene. I include baby showers and wedding showers in this category. Attending these things is such a freaking burden. Does anybody enjoy them? It infuriated me that none of my guy friend’s have to spend hour after grueling hour of their precious weekends attending these terrible events, which totally suck.
A few minutes later, the same guy mentioned that he thinks the draft will be reimposed in the next few years and that every guy eighteen to twenty-five will be heading out to the Middle East. Somebody at the party asked if he thought that women would be included. This pulled me out of my pity reverie in regards to the girl-only shower scene and into a panic in regards to the draft. I’m all for patriotism and am happy to help in any desk job and/or nursing-tragically-handsome-invalids capacity that I can. But I don’t want to get drafted. Military duty sounds awful and I don’t want to be yelled at or have to participate in any sort of boot camp challenges. It all sounds terrible and really scary.
The other weird thing is that on all of my dates so far with Jack, I’ve offered (with very sincere intentions) to pay for lunch, dinner, etc, but he won’t let me. In the past when I’ve dated people, I’ve always kind of taken the approach that you take turns treating. It seems to make sense being that most women my age work full-time these days and are certainly capable of carrying their own weight in terms of fiscal matters. For some reason, his bizarre insistence in this matter is making me all melty in much the same way as the bartender mentioned above that called me ‘sugar.’ It’s all very odd and disturbing and I’m having difficulty reconciling all of these things in my mind.
As a way of dealing with it, I’ve opted to avoid vocalizing my thoughts on any of this and am waiting for my stupid brain to become intrigued by something else. Something that doesn’t involve reason and contemplation in all matters regarding the roles of men and women.
I’m thinking about taking tap dancing lessons.
SPEAKING OF SHOWERS
All this talk about showers has made me think of a particularly terrible one that I was forced to attend a few years ago. This was a bridal shower thrown for a woman that was marrying one of my closest friends from college. My friend is utterly ridiculous. But is also one of the kindest and fun people I’ve ever met. Before I jump into being a catty a-hole, I’d like to preface the whole thing with my positive thoughts on his wife in the hopes that this will somehow make my cattiness sound less bitchy.
She’s a good person. She’s nice to him and makes him incredibly happy. They definitely belong together and, because of all of this, I'm glad that she's in his life. But, okay. That’s all I’ve got.
So anyway, I first met this girl my sophomore year of college. She was a year younger than me and had the same on-campus job that I had, which consisted of selling tickets at the auditorium's box office and eating candy out of the concession stand. At the beginning of the year she broke her leg trying out for the varsity cheerleading squad, and apparently the break was bad enough to confine her to a wheelchair for several weeks. I felt really bad for her, so I told her to let me know if I could run any errands, or pick up any homework, or whatever for her. In response, she twisted around in her chair so that she could gaze up at me with swollen, tear-filled eyes and say:
“You have no idea what I'm going through. I’m never going to be a cheerleader now. Not ever!”
As she made her oh-so-sad declaration regarding her cheerleading related drama, I thought to myself, ‘Boo-fucking-hoo. It’s cheerleading, not an amputated limb.’
In summary, this is why this girl and I aren’t close friends. We have absolutely no ability to relate to each other. It’s not as if we hate each other, but in terms of bonding, there isn’t a single common thread between the two of us. I’d like to think that at this point in our lives we share a mutual respect, but in reality this is probably more of a mutual ambivalence. Either way, it’s working, and I’m sticking with what works.
So suddenly here it is. Six years after meeting her for the first time she’s marrying one of my closest friends and he really wants me to go to her bridal shower. And of course I will because he’s a good person and a good friend. And it is my duty as a woman. Dammit.
I should note, that Kay was also invited to the shower. She was looking forward to it in much the same manner as me.
The shower itself began at noon on a warm, summary Saturday. We’d lucked out in terms of location because it was only two blocks from our apartment. The one thing we both knew going into this thing was that it would be best if we arrived drunk. Trust me on this one. There’d be no other way to get through it.
At the time I was really obsessed with this margarita recipe:
1 Package of Frozen Limeade Concentrate
1 Can of Mountain Dew
1 Bottle of Corona
12 oz. of Tequila
Instructions: Combine Limeade Concentrate,
Mountain Dew, Corona and Tequila. Stir and
serve over the rocks in salt-rimmed glasses.
It didn’t take long for these things to get you drunk, and the combination of tequila/caffeine really created a nice hyper sort of buzz. Note that these margarita’s can get old fast if you drink them too frequently. Very sweet. My ever-increasing age prohibits me from even touching them anymore.
So we split a couple pitchers and head over to the shower at noon. When we arrive, it appears that most of the guests are already there and there’s no place to sit. The room is filled with all of her friends, who most likely share equivalent feelings about cheerleading. Not that I’m judging …
We stand around awkwardly until, finally someone pulls out a single folding chair for the two of us to share and we sit down. The chair is pretty small and our drunken state makes it difficult for us to balance, but we manage. A few minutes after I sit down, the girl's miniscule dog comes prancing over to me. I pick him up, set him in my lap and proceed to pet him in an absent manner. All of the sudden I notice that he’s begun undergoing a series of spasms and I nudge Kay to make her look. ‘Weird,’ I think to myself.
Suddenly my friend’s fiancé jumps up screeching:
“Oh my god! He’s having another seizure.”
I look at her with utter perplexion, “What?”
She snatches the dog out my lap and begins coddling him against her breast.
“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers over and over in an excited tone.
Later, Kay and I discover that the hostess has provisions consisting of one bottle of white zinfandel for the twenty-five people in attendance and about a thousand pitchers of lemonade. We are forced to drink lemonade out of our wine glasses, which for some inexplicable reason have our names painted on them in yellow. Kay’s is misspelled – K-A-Y-E.
When the party games commence, we discover that we’ll be doing a ‘purse treasure hunt.’ Each person gets a list of items and is required to mark off which ones they currently have in their purse. So here’s the thing. I love purses. I collect vintage purses. But almost all of them are small clutches. I carry my i.d., credit cards, cash, cell phone, lip gloss and sometimes a pen. That’s it. Kay doesn’t carry a purse at all. She uses the rubber band that comes with broccoli to bind her i.d., credit cards and cash together and sticks it in her pocket. I still haven’t figured out what she does with her cell phone. The one time Kay does carry a purse, however, is when she’s having her period. On those days, she’ll carry a purse containing a single tampon.
So anyway. On the day of the shower. Kay was suffering from her period. Because of this, she scored one point during the game for the tampon. The other women at the party wouldn’t let her count her money and credit cards because she had them in her pocket. I got six points.
The next lowest score was nineteen points. When they passed out the lists to commence the game, every girl at the party suddenly pulled out what appeared to be a suitcase and began rifling through its multitude of compartments. The items on the list that seemed obscure to me – like perfume, hairspray, brushes, food, etc – were apparently commonplace for the other party attendees. I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t use all of these things, but I don’t see any reason to carry them around with me. How long are these people planning to be away from home and what the hell are they doing that would necessitate carrying all of it around? It completely befuddles me.
Needless to say, we lost. The bride-to-be ended up winning with thirty-two points and received a scented candle, which I'm guessing she crammed into her purse and is still carrying around to this day. Just in case.
When the bride got to opening her presents, she became outrageously excited to discover she'd received a bottle of Vera Wang perfume. She teared up and screamed:
“Oh my god, Mom. I’ve always dreamed of having this for my wedding.”
Before she could stop herself, Kay asked, “How come?”
The bride shifted her attention warily onto the two of us.
“Don’t you know?” she said making the same face I make when I smell something burning, “A wedding isn’t a wedding without Vera Wang.”
Now. I’m not stupid. I’m aware that Vera Wang is famous for her wedding gowns and they’re certainly very beautiful, but … I doubt the police are going to come and shut down your wedding if you don’t pay some sort of pittance to the Vera Wang Corporation. She doesn’t have a stranglehold on the entire wedding industry. I doubt she’s running any sort of wedding dictatorship. And, frankly, I think it’s stupid to purchase her perfume just so that you can say that you have something Vera Wang at your wedding.
The saying isn’t ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something Wang.’ Trust me. I checked.
Throughout the present opening, there were many inferences made regarding activities scheduled to occur that night. Uh-oh. A bachelorette party. Kay and I became distinctly aware of the fact that we weren’t invited when everyone else at the party would suddenly shush the other person and glance surreptitiously at us to make sure that we hadn’t registered what that person had said.
The bride-to-be finished opening her gifts at around four that afternoon and at that point Kay and I saw an opening to get the hell out of there. We stood, thanked the hostess, congratulated the bride and began making our way to the exit like two fleeing mice. As I was reaching for the doorknob, I suddenly heard a screech behind me. In response, I began twisting the knob in a frantic motion, praying that I could get out of the apartment before the screecher managed to get at me.
Before I could make it outside, however, the hostess rounded the corner and thrust our wine glasses with our names painted on them at us.
“Oh gosh. Thanks,” I said.
The hostess stared at me as if she'd just discovered I was mentally retarded before heading back in to the others.
Halfway down the block, Kay suddenly realized she’d left her purse behind. The purse with the single tampon.
“Leave it,” I told her shaking my head sorrowfully, “It’s gone.”
“It was my grandmother’s,” she responded with a note of rising panic.
I took off running down the sidewalk and turned around when I was half a block away.
“No way in hell I’m going back in there!” I shouted from the distance.
“Traitor!” she yelled to my back as I turned to run the rest of the way back to our apartment, “You whore!”
She showed up at our place about ten minutes later, red faced and fuming. I’d already mixed up another batch of margaritas and had poured her one. After a few contemplative sips, I asked where her wine glass party favor was.
“I threw it when I was walking down the alley,” she responded sounding calmer than before.
A few days later, my glass disappeared as well. I asked Kay what happened to it and she said that she’d accidentally broken it while she was doing the dishes. I felt immensely relieved. Crap like that is the sort of thing that creates clutter, but for some reason is hard to just casually throw away. Like I would be symbolically dissing my friend’s bride or something.
So as of today, a few years after the wedding, which was very tasteful.** This woman has had a few kids and she seems different. More content and laid back. And every time I catch up with my friend from college, he’s the same happy-go-lucky guy. Except even happier than before.
To each his own, I suppose.
**I swear to God that I’m not being sarcastic. It was one of the nicest ones I’ve ever attended.
PRE-DATE LEMONADES
So on Sunday when Jack showed up to take me to the barbecue, he stopped in for a minute to make out a little and drink some lemonade. The mail I’d received on Saturday was scattered across my coffee table and amongst it was a coloring book page my Mom had sent me from my nephew.
The picture was, in actuality, a maze, but instead of completing it by drawing a path through it, he’d scribbled all over the page with an orange crayon. Jack had picked it up and was looking at it.
“Not very good at mazes, is he?” I pointed out.
“How old is he?” Jack asked.
“Three.”
“Well …,” he said with quiet confidence, “he’s still practicing.”
It made me feel all melty again, and so I made out with him some more.
- Entirely Exempt of Kattiness
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