Panty dropper

No one really likes doing laundry. It's time-consuming, labor intensive and often involves you walking up and down the stairs of your apartment complex dropping socks and t-shirts along the way. Sometimes motherfuckers steal shit out of the laundry room when you've walked away for TEN MINUTES BECAUSE YOU LEFT THE QUARTERS UPSTAIRS. Once I found a carefully written epistle in my laundry room on top of an empty box of laundry detergent, ranting in a passive aggressive fashion about the injustices of the world and how it was totally unfair that someone used all of their detergent and how they could just go fuck their mothers because honestly who does that?! Laundry incites riot and unnecessary rage. I waited up until fucking 11 pm last night waiting for my goddamn pants to dry. I kind of hate laundry. With a passion.

The only reason I did laundry last night was because the underwear drawer was starting to look bare. Due to my irrational yet strong hatred for doing this menial task, I try to do laundry very rarely. I have enough clothes to last and I like to think that I don't smell. Possibly I am a disgusting creature, but this is no matter. Whatever, man. If you don't like it, then leave. Underwear is not something you can make stretch. We change our underwear every day, children.

These underwear even have explicit instructions written on them as to when to change. There is a reason for that. Shit is naaasty. However, in my travels yesterday I briefly contemplated relying on an old college trick that got me through many financially strapped weeks when I desperately needed to do laundry but was too busy squandering my lucre on things like cigarettes, magazines, salsa con queso from the C-store and weed. Instead of going to Safeway like a responsible grown-up and getting quarters, I was going to take a little trip to Ross and buy underwear instead of doing laundry. This stroke of genius saved my ass numerous times in college. Once I was invited to an impromptu trip to a friend's house in New Hampshire. I had about three hours to get ready and packed. I had not done laundry in many moons. I was all packed and wearing the last clean pair of underwear I had. My only choice was to walk to the TJ Maxx in Brookline next to the liquor store and purchase 5 of the most shameful pairs of underwear ever. One pair is teal. It says WANNA BE A ROCKSTAR on the ass in rhinestones. One pair has the Easter bunny on the crotch. This was bargain basement underwear, shit that most should not and would not wear. That's why they were $3 each.

Panties in hand, I remember strolling peacefully back to my apartment. Take that stank pile of laundry! I've beat you once again! The rhinestones fell off individually over the years. I still have those underwear. They are my underwear of shame.

Don't be this trashy, kids. Try to keep it together. Do your laundry. It won't be that bad, I promise.

Trashy or Not?

Nappers

napping in your bosses office while she is away? trashyornot, it's so much fun :)

Wet Hair

So last night you threw back too many lychee martinis and forgot to set your alarm before passing out. You wake up 30 minutes before work starts, take one look at your hair to assess the damage and almost vomit in your mouth. You throw yourself into the shower hoping to wash away your shame, piecing together the events of the night before. You throw on the clothes nearest to you on the floor (without a stain on the boob and with the least amount of wrinkles) and attempt to fix yourself up so you can prove to yourself, against the harsh judgement of the world that you are really a classy brawd....well kinda....sometimes....

Cut to twenty minutes later. You are speed walking down the street, jacket half on, putting on earrings and adjusting your bra strap when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the store window. The familiar taste of vomit collects on your mouth. You try to look away but like a bad car accident, your eye keeps turning. You see it every where, on the side of the bus, in the sunglasses of the people who walk by, in the post office window: Your wet hair gleaming, scattered about your head like a bad flower arrangement. You eerily resemble the wild dog who sketechily wanders up the alley behind your apt looking for food. Except you look worse, like you been dragged up and down the street a few times before having your hair run over by a truck . You pray/hope your hair will miraculously dry by the time you get to work.

No luck...you breathlessly brush through the doors 10 minutes late, to be greeted by your coworker who loves to comment on how tired you look. "Didn't get much sleep last night huh?" She smiles "sympathetically", cocking her head to one side.

For the rest of the day your hair is desperately trying to figure out what to do with itself, and eventually you give up and put it back into the inevitable pony tail.

Sigh.. the curse of the wet hair... plaguing us girls (and some fashion conscious boys) since elementary school. It's the look that screams to the world how badly you suck at life. How you just can't get your shit together in time..ever. I always wondered how the girls in the Cosby show pulled it off...

Plus, living in the ice box that we call the northeast, during the winter time (ie 8 months out of the year) we get the extra bonus of having your hair freeze into cute little dreaded icicles, delaying the drying time even more. At least if you live in Southern California, you could be mistaken for being a hot surfer chick who got up early to catch some waves. (right...)

But before you go and start blow drying your hair in the hand drier in the bathroom, you can take comfort that there is a time and place for wet hair. When it is actualy appropriate and even sexy. Contra trashy...

Enter the beach hair. The glorious time when it doesn't matter what you are wearing, if you are wearing anything, or when the last time you took a shower was..well because you're tan and beautiful.

The best part about the wet hair at the beach look is that it will soon turn into the sexy beach blown hair look, that you so desperately try to recreate with John Frienda's beach blonde (which sadly they do not make anymore). So go... jump in the water, get your hair as salty and sandy and sun exposed as possible. Let your damp locks fall freely on your cleavage. Just make sure you're at the beach.

Three for the road.

The corner store in my neighborhood sells loose cigarettes, three for a dollar. This situation is perfect for homeless people, degenerates, drug addicts and apparently, me.

The feeling of scrounging frantically in the bottom of my bag for a quarter to add to the pile of change clutched in my sweaty palm so that I may purchase three single Camel Lights is indescribable.

Once again, I'll take one for the team.

Le fruit du merd

one word, three syllables: Oranges. The mango's evil twin sister.

Why god invented this fruit in the first place is beyond me, but even more confusing is why it has been squeezed, mixed with various otherwise fine tasting foods, packaged and consumed.

hello

endies endies endies!

diction

ooh ooh! people that say "leg" like "laig" and "egg" like "aig." drives me right up the wall. so trashy. where'd they learn to talk, in a barn?!* and people that always sound like they have a cold, for whatever reason. that's trashy.


* sorry, northern california. as far as i can tell, this phonetic dysfunction is native to your shores.

At the cinema.

Situational trashiness is something we haven't talked about yet, but it's definitely something to keep an eye out for.

Drinking at the movies: So it's NOT trashy to go to the Arclight (sorry for the LA ref.) and drop an obscene about of money on a movie ticket PLUS walk through their gift shop and stop at the bar to get a specialty martini. But it IS trashy for me to bring a sparks or even a snapple + vodka to the AMC on Market Street? Come on!

Other examples of situational trashiness include, but are obviously not limited to:

• Bare feet. Sometimes this can be cute (think, kids on rope swings) and sometimes this can be trashy (think, kids in McDonalds).
• Bikini tops. These are great when you're at the beach or driving home from the beach...but you never want them to be a replacement for an actual shirt while walking around Six Flags Great Adventure.

Be self aware,
a.n.b.

Children, don't spend money you don't have.

It's saturday morning. I'm in my 'get shit done' uniform (headband, yoga pants + tshirt, glasses, face masque), armed with my TI-83 calculator...ready to do some budgeting & financial planning. On this particular morning, I have an extra spring in my step due to the fact that I just paid off all of my outstanding cedit cards.

This is when I realize that credit cards and the lending industry are both pretty trashy. I've included statistics below to support this piont.

• The credit card industry mailed over 6 billion credit card offers in 2005, an average of 6 offers per household per month
• Late fee income alone totaled over $11 billion in 2005
• 78% of American households were deemed creditworthy by the credit card industry in 2004
• With its acquisition of MBNA, Bank of America became the nation’s largest credit card issuer in 2006, followed by Chase and Citi.
• There were 574 million Visa and MasterCard accounts in the U.S in 2004
• Average household credit card debt has increased 167% between 1990 and 2004
• The average interest rate paid on credit cards was approximately 14.54% in 2005
• The rate of personal savings in the United States dipped below 0% for the first time since the great depression in 2005, hitting negative .5%
• Approximately 23 million households made only minimum payments in 2005
• 2.39 million U.S. households filed for bankruptcy in 2005, a 12.8% increase over 2004
• The average credit card balance in 2005 would require over 13 years to pay off if only making minimum payments of 4% at an average interest rate of 14%
• As of 2004, the number one cause of divorce is financial stress
• In 2004, 83% of undergraduate college students had at least one credit card in their name with an average outstanding balance of over $2,300
• 32% of students had 4 or more credit cards in 2004
• In 2005, 65% of teens failed a financial literacy test according to the JumpStart Coalition

Remember: Don't spend money you don't have!