HGTV in HDTV, or, Why I Hate Everyone

No double sinks in the master suite? Well, fiddle-dee-dee!

I’m over 30 and in a relationship, so I spent much of my weekend watching Home and Garden Television. If you ever want to witness everything that is wrong with America, spend a few hours watching materialistic nitwits confuse wants with needs and hurtle toward financial chaos.

There are just so many HGTV options. Want to see a kitchen undergo a stunningly modern update from avocado green to, wait for it...vomit green? Or how about watching a young couple as they adorn their living room with surfboards and fake bamboo? Care to be a witness to a striking furniture rearrangement that shows putrescent floral sofas to their best advantage? Or maybe you’d like to see a guest room go arts-and-crafts style via so much hand-sewing and fussy frippery that you wonder whether these people have anything better to do. (Answer: No. No, they do not.)

But my favorite shows are the ones where young couples shop for houses. Sometimes they want a ready-made house, sometimes they want to renovate. But either way, it’s completely fascinating. It shouldn't be, because watching other people shop usually makes me want to staple-gun my eyelids shut. But it is!

I don’t know why economists spend their days poring over dull charts and graphs. Thirty minutes of “House Hunters” will tell them everything they need to know about the housing market crash, subprime loan disaster, and recession. Each episode starts with an examination of everything wrong with their current home. Usually, it’s “doesn’t have granite and stainless steel all over the kitchen,” which is our generation's answer to avocado green and harvest gold shag carpeting. Or they don't have enough closet space for all the yuppie doodads they never needed in the first place, or it lacks a four-car heated garage complete with built-in Slip n’ Slide.

So the couple troops from house to house, carefully noting the ways in which perfectly fine, nay, adorable homes just aren’t good enough. What they really need to do is tear out a bunch of walls, build a screened-in playroom to accommodate the entire Fisher-Price line of educational toys for their hyper-indulged children, and then install at least two bathrooms for each member of the family. Including the dog.

My favorite was the young married couple in Florida. OK, she’s pregnant and they live in a fourth-floor walkup. Fair enough, it’s time to move. But on closer viewing, these people are shopping exclusively for toddler deathtraps. Tile floors? Sure, Baby’s gonna want to fall down on those when learning to walk. Oooh, how about a pool and a hot tub? Multiple places for Baby to drown! And let’s pick the place behind the golf course, so Baby can get beaned on the head by the CEO of GimmeMore Industries as he finishes up eighteen holes and four martinis.

I guess I just don’t get it. What’s so wrong with a cute three-bedroom house in a safe neighborhood near the city? How could such a nice, wholesome place to live possibly need $140,000 in renovations? How could anyone turn up their noses at a fenced yard, two-car garage, good schools, and other standard-issue American Dream items?

Instead, everybody goes over budget, confusing what they need (a roof over their heads) with what they want (a roof over their heads that’s much nicer than what their friends have). And that’s why we’ve got a housing crash, credit crunch, and recession. Because people have no clue how to be happy with what they have, so they buy more than they need. Because they’re somehow entitled to the luxury and status that earlier generations would save up and wait for.

As for us? Tim was inspired to do some spring cleaning. Hopefully he won’t staple-gun plastic palm fronds to his walls or make a faux Magic Eye painting from his vacation slides. I was inspired to go home, look around my shabby little studio, and feel absurdly grateful. I’m glad it’s not a stainless steel McMansion in an exurb, shoving me towards a life of acquisition and the fear-laden ambition I’d need to sustain all of that pointless stuff. I don't see any reason to knock myself out attaining the sort of life I never wanted.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to hand-stitch some faux stained-glass curtains and use a nail gun to perform a home lobotomy.

Back Before We All Got to Be Special...A Tale of Nerd P.E.

When I was in high school, I was considered “gifted.” Nowadays, with the smartification of America, every child is gifted. But once upon a time, you could gain enormous prestige by properly shifting bits of construction paper in a four-hour, demandingly inane standardized test.

Every other week, Imperial Me and I would spend several hours locked in a tiny, windowless room with between four and seven fellow nerds. We would have deep discussions on stuff no one cared about, thereby re-confirming our inherent smartyness. To this day, I am convinced this “classroom” was really a CIA laboratory, used to groom future covert agents.

Other signs of our enhanced status included nerd-only field trips, nerd-only class projects, and free time to fill out our abundant college applications. (True story: I applied to Harvard because I really had nothing else going on that day. No, I didn’t get in.)

But the greatest honor of all was “Nerd P.E.” Because our schedules were blocked together, all the gifted kids took gym during second period. So, theoretically, this should have saved me from all the humiliations of gym class with non-nerds. You know, being the last one picked for teams, being the last one to finish the mile run, being the only one to wipe out on the gymnastics equipment…oh, wait. Even in Nerd P.E., I was still the last one picked for teams, the last one to finish every race (a mile in 20 minutes! Go me!), and the girl who did an unintentional cannonball off the gymnastics horse.

And, of course, what all this really meant...Nerd Driver's Ed. Nerd Health. And, worst of all, Nerd Sex Ed. ("Boys and girls, here's the vital information the vast majority of you will not need until college, if ever.")

So what have we learned? I’m the Nerdiest Nerd Who Ever Nerded. I’m a Nerd Queen!

The Pit of Laundry Despair

I live in a soulless high rise apartment building. It’s a concrete filing cabinet with slots for widows, single people, and recent immigrants. Usually, two of the three elevators are busted, and the functioning one stops at every floor due to the shenanigans of bratty kids.

On the other hand, it’s rent-controlled and all-inclusive. So I don’t care. Oh, except for the basement laundry room, which I’ve taken to calling the Pit of Laundry Despair. However, instead of a wheelbarrow-toting albino, we have the Glamourous Ladies of Washing(ton). GLOW, if you will.

The GLOW engage in at least three, if not all six, of the following reprehensible communal living behaviors:

1. Suck up at least five washers.
2. Use at least twice as many dryers as washers, thereby creating a logjam, because for some godforsaken reason my building has twice as many washers as dryers.
3. Remove said items from washers one item at a time, shaking them out, regarding them closely, and transferring them lovingly to a dryer.
4. Remove and fold items from the dryer one by one, instead of dumping them on a table to be folded.
5. Scatter clothes over every flat surface to be folded, preventing anyone else from folding their laundry.
6. Do all of the above in ratty sweatpants with words across the rump, while their children roller-skate in circles around the folding table.

The Princess Bride had an amazing device that could suck years off your life. My building’s Pit of Despair has a similar life-shortening contraption: dryers. Somehow, of the paltry seven dryers, at least two will be out of order. And the ones that do work will convert your clothes into a tasty snack of melted cotton and stir-fried denim.

So, what can I do? Go to a Laundromat? Neat trick, except I don’t have a car. Leave passive-aggressive notes all over the basement? Building management already tried that, it was pretty hopeless. Complain on my blog, in the hopes that people will commiserate? Done!

Whole Paycheck Rant

A few weeks ago, I attempted to expand my horizons, do my bit for Mother Earth, and shoot my bank account to hell. Add it all up...I bought lunch at Whole Foods.

I despise Whole Foods. For starters, food is a basic human right and simply should not cost that much. There is no logical reason why a small bag of cherries should be $10, unless the cherries were sneezed on by Moses himself and polished by blind Bhutanese monks. I'm also a pretty simple person, and don't require that all my food be gloriously gourmet and farm-fresh.

But don't worry about the prices, because the customer base gives out the sanctimony for free. There's nothing like a yuppie guilt trip about factory farming and buying local/organic/raised by elves when food prices are skyrocketing and I am barely making ends meet. Apparently, if you do not spend an absurd amount on a can of beans, you are a Bad Person. This is much like the Prius evangelicals who want tax breaks and fawning admiration, because they can go out and buy a brand-new car when so many others cannot.

Whole Foods is not hippie-dippy counterculture. We have my parents for that. Whole Foods is a mega-corp that squashes competition and is working to replace all those little companies on its shelves with their own 365 brand. It's not the cute little grassroots mama Earth movement the yupsters seem to think it is.

But I could deal with the prices, the snootiness and the sanctimony if the store itself made even a smidge of effort to be pleasant. My neighborhood Safeway is infamous for its chaotic aisles, rude customers, bratty kids, long lines, and slow cashiers. Which, funnily enough, was just like shopping at Whole Foods. All the fun for twice the price!

On my visit, the lines were halfway down the aisles. And, to add to the pain, some genius decided to put a teenage trainee cashier on the line during lunch rush.

Trainer: Now you put the food on the scanner.
Trainee: I put the food on the scanner?
Trainer: Yes. That tells you how much it costs.
Trainee: It costs (absurdly stupid amount for a glorified snack).
Trainer: Take her money, then give her change.
Trainee: I don't understand!

Please note that this exchange occurred for every single customer.

So, Whole Paycheck, you can keep your yuppie sanctimony and silly prices. I'll be at my nasty old Safeway.

How Life Gets It Wrong

I spent an exciting Saturday evening playing a new edition of The Game of Life.

I miss the Life of my youth. Mainly because, upon retirement, you could trade in your children for cash. I just loved the idea that procreation had a cash value of $2,500. Also, it was entirely possible to go bankrupt or lose your job. The Life of my youth was uncertain and somewhat challenging. Much like the real thing.

Today’s Life reflects a certain gimme-gimme bourgeois sensibility. For starters, the cars are now minivans instead of sedans. The game order is college-career-marriage-house-kids, with no deviations. I married a fellow pink peg, just to inject a teeny slice of counterculture. Nobody gets to stay single, nobody can say “screw you” to the housing market and rent forever, and there are enough “It’s a Boy!” or “Adopt Twins!” spaces that kids are virtually compulsory. My own pegwife was astonishingly fertile, spawning twice within three turns. If she’d had arms, I would have jammed some teeny-tiny Norplant in there.

Additionally, all of the career options are a child’s-eye view of prestige. Entertainer, doctor, teacher, policeman. The lone dullard is the accountant. I’m surprised there was no “astronaut” option. Nobody becomes a bartender, carpenter, or secretary (boo!).

It was all too easy and absurdly lucrative. You could earn upwards of $250,000 just for landing on a random space and getting a Life Tile. You could earn $90,000 a year as a rookie cop. Tax payments involved luck instead of law. Everyone retires a millionaire. I wonder if this game is warping children, convincing them that adulthood is a lockstep of success with little to no effort. Who am I kidding? Kids today think that way anyhow, without the influence of Milton Bradley.

So, after a round of Life on a Saturday night, I felt like a bit of a loser. Not because I should have been out at a swank club instead of playing children’s games on the floor of my little studio. Instead, I wondered why nobody’s ever handed me $90,000 a year, a house by random selection, a trouble-free fruitful marriage, or the ability to pay off my college loans within three spins of the wheel. Why does everything in my life happen out of sequence and take so much effort?

On the other hand, at least I don’t have to drive around in an orange plastic minivan.

Your Essential Haircut Update

Today, The Haircut From Hell has decided to arrange itself in a tribute to a beloved fictional character:



Awesome.

Craigslist: The Odds Are Good, the Goods Are Odd

No doubt, dating is a raw deal for everyone. But, in the approach stage, it’s primarily a raw deal for men. That's because approach is, fairly or no, the province of guys.

I’ve seen successful and unsuccessful approaches over the years. Generally speaking, I dig direct and funny. “Nice shoes, wanna screw?” at the very least will get you a laugh. Asking to see my hands, asking my opinion about celebrities, or other common Gamester tricks will get you nowhere. Hovering in my presence and hoping I’ll notice you is just going to give me the creeps.

The bar scene is no different than Internet dating. Craigslist is like that dirty, stanky meat market bar that occasionally turns up some real gems.

If you’re a woman and you post a personal ad, your inbox will fill up in 20 seconds flat with treatises of love, friendly hellos from nice guys, and a few weenie photos. Your odds of meeting a man are good, then again, the goods are odd. Much like the bar scene, many guys completely lock up on the approach and make fools of themselves. They're most likely to go hopelessly off the rails within the first sentence.

For your Friday enjoyment, here are some introductory sentence gems from my Craigslist date-a-thon player phase (about a year ago):

......i am starting to think that its hard to find and trust someone on here.....i guess words are meaningless.......the word love just stays a word and don,t really mean anything........just a meaningless word......

It’s like poetry. Lord Byron! Byron by way of Borat, that is.

I'm a 28 year old Ivy League professional working as a lobbyist in town... and have found it difficult to find a truly substantive and fun relationship in DC.

Possibly because you tell women right off the bat that you’re an Ivy League lobbyist? Also, please don’t use corporate killspeak like “substantive” in a pickup. His whole sentence reads like a cover letter for a job at the Shannon Corporation.

I Thought That I'd send You A small Response To Your Message ... :-)

And I Thought It would Be Best To Not Reply.

Yes, I was in a long relationship, 7 years. Don't worry, I'm over her. That was about 7 months ago.

Yeah, take THAT, ex-girlfriend! I’m movin’ on! By mentioning you as quickly as humanly possible!

PS – I am aware that I’m a deeply flawed woman, not all that, not representative of women everywhere, etc. Let it go, have a laugh.