Playing The Cancer Card

Posted on September 16, 2011 by pegoleg

My card…

Having cancer is like having a “get out of jail free” card.

My sister Lib and I were antiquing when we came upon a nifty, old copper-lined heat lamp.  The way Lib tells it, SHE saw it first and called me over to admire her intended purchase.  She says I then tried to hustle it out from under her nose.

I remember this differently.

I dug through heaps of junk to unearth the lamp and wanted to share my excitement with my dear sister. As I waxed enthusiastic about my plans to convert it to a light, Lib visibly wilted, leaning against a wall.  She adopted a wistful expression and said, in a faint voice “Boy, wouldn’t that look nice in my apartment.  I could gaze  upon it while I’m lying on the couch, too weak to do anything else because, after all, I have cancer.”  A feeble little cough followed.

Guess who ended up with the lamp.

This isn’t the first time this has happened.  I couldn’t help myself.  I blurted out, “You know, Lib, as often as you play the cancer card, you should have some made up.”

I wondered if, perhaps, I had gone too far.  Some might be offended.  Not my sister.  Lib immediately abandoned the wilting flower performance.  She pantomimed smartly whipping a card out of her pocket, presented it to me and said in a cheesy salesman manner, “My card”.

Near as I can tell, there aren’t a lot of benefits to having cancer.  The one thing you’ve got going for you is the sympathy factor.  You’d be a fool not to exploit it.   It occurred to us that playing the cancer card would be a lot easier with an actual deck of cards.  Eureka!

Announcing, the Playing The Cancer Card deck by Peg-Co.

The cards will be printed on one side with “Because I have cancer.”  The other side will list various things you want to get, or get out of doing.  Only the most callused, heart-hearted Scrooge could deny you when you present them with a card asking to:

  • Get out of a ticket
  • Get to talk about yourself all the time
  • Get out of work
  • Get to the front of the line
  • Get to stroll into work late and leave early
  • Get waited on hand and foot
  • Get to cut in traffic
  • Get to forget birthdays, anniversaries and any other gift-giving occasions

We are still in the development stage, so suggestions are welcome.

Here’s how it would work.  Let’s say you are late for your session at the Jamaica Tanning Salon, so you’ve got the pedal to the metal.  You’re doing 60 in a 30 zone and the police pull you over.  If you happen to be bald from chemo, quickly remove your head covering while the officer is running your plates.  If you’re not bald, stuff your hair up under the all-purpose bandana you keep in the glove box for just such an emergency.  This implies baldness.

When he approaches your window and asks for your license and registration, smile wanly and present the documents with your “Because I have cancer – Get out of a ticket” card prominently displayed on top.

Say, “I’m sorry, officer.  I normally never exceed the posted speed limit.  It’s just that I am late for ___________”.  Mention a life-saving cancer treatment.  It is probably best to stick with something like chemo, though, and not mention medical marijuana (which they just so happen to sell at the Jamaica Smoke Shop next to the tanning place.)  He’d have to be one cold dude to give you that ticket.

What if you’re using your Playing The Cancer Card deck and the recipient turns out to have a deck herself?  Let’s say you’re in line at the grocery store, and present your “get to the front of the line” card to the person ahead of you.  She whips off her wig to reveal her equally bald head, and shows her own card.  It would seem to be a sympathy stalemate.

Lib came up with a workable solution for that.  She suggests a tiebreaker protocol based on a hierarchy of cancers.  Not surprisingly, she figures a brain tumor trumps just about any other kind and propels her to the front of the line.

This would be like a fun game of Rock, Paper, Scissors based on life-threatening illness!

Let’s face it.  In life, we all have to play the hand we’re dealt.  Soon, cancer patients will be able to play that hand with their own, Playing The Cancer Card deck.  (To be offered at a low, low introductory price, plus shipping and handling.)

ps.  Lib just finished her second round of chemo and is feeling fine.  Thanks for your continuing kind thoughts and prayers.

Posted in Cancer Schmancer, Peg-Co Catalog | Tagged , , , , , | 41 Comments

People Are Nice

Posted on September 14, 2011 by pegoleg

stop and smell the bathroom

People are nice, and I have proof.

I took advantage of this last, long weekend (created by me taking off work on Friday and Monday) to travel to Michigan to see my family.  My modus operandi is to break up the 6-8 hour trip by stopping at McDonalds for beverages every 2 hours, and at rest areas for beverage relief on the off hours.

My bladder recommended a stop at the rest area in Michigan City, Indiana.  After taking care of bizness, I was washing my hands and examining my pasty, road-trip-rumpled self in the mirror when a dash of color in the otherwise bland bathroom caught my eye.

There was a vase of bright, pink wildflowers on the ledge above the sinks.

Apparently one of the cleaning ladies at this institutional way station thought that a touch of pretty might brighten the moment for road-weary travelers.  She was so right.  By going above and beyond the call of duty, she made us all feel welcome.

What really struck me, however, was the response to this simple, little bit of grace.  

Someone had taken the time to write a thank you note to the anonymous cleaning lady.  Another traveler, seeing the first note, added her own.  A mini-wave of notes was started and now there were about a dozen arranged around the vase.

Many notes described the writer’s journey.  Some thanked the cleaning lady.  Yet another complimented the cleanliness of the bathroom. Many offered wishes for safe trips to their fellow travelers.  Those without paper added a line to someone else’s note.  This “Kilroy peed here” exchange had been going on about a week.  The cleaning lady had obviously been inspired to keep up the practice because the flower arrangement was fresh.

I thought about 2-dozen strangers, digging in their purses to find a scrap of notepaper, the back of a bank envelope or old receipt, and something with which to write.  We all wanted to join in this spontaneous bit of fellowship with total strangers. 

My note is the farthest on the right in the photo.  What did I say?  To find out, you’ll have to take a detour to Michigan City, Indiana.  Once there, be sure to take the time to stop and smell the flowers… in the ladies rest room.

Posted in People Are Nice | Tagged , , , , , , | 41 Comments

Orange and Blue: Game Day

Posted on September 7, 2011 by pegoleg

We saw the first one after we got on the highway, when still 2 hours away.  The car passed us going 70.  Their blue flag flapped crisply behind them.  It was a little sun faded, the orange letter “I” not as sharp as it had been when new.

The signs of the faithful increased the closer we got.  Here a bumper sticker, there another flag, occasionally a motor home festooned for major tailgate action.  A stop at a gas station an hour away, and I counted 7 other people bedecked in neon orange t-shirts.  Parents?  Alumni? 

It’s game day.

The town is awash.  The streets, the sidewalks, the parking lots filled with tailgaters; everywhere you look you see the color scheme du jour.  Those not in orange or blue are the exception.  Foreign exchange students, hustling to the library despite the fact that it is Saturday, and game day, are among the minority.  They are out of uniform.  

Little boys wearing the blue jerseys of their favorite players toss the football with their dad behind the family’s pop-up tent.  Girls wearing orange ribbons in their hair, babies in matching diapers come to the stadium in the arms of their mothers.  These are the young graduates, remembering their wilder days, and raising their kids up with a belief in these fine, old traditions.  They are secure in the knowledge that they, too, will someday have a home here.

Scores of parents stream in to the game.  Some are alumni and some, like us, use this day as an excuse to spend a few hours with our babies, now embarking on their college journeys.  The orange shirt is the dress code; the game ticket is the cost of admission.  It, and the bill for dinner for our kid and whatever new friends are parentless today, is a small price to pay for the chance to see her.  

An elderly couple leans heavily on one another as they hobble into the stadium.  Their orange and blue has the faded, well-pressed look of long use.  Perhaps they met at this very stadium – he, just back from the war; she, a shy coed away from home for the first time.  They have come back through the highs and lows of their lives.  Their steps are tentative, shaky in their orthopedic shoes.  This may be their last season.  But they are damn well here today, and by God will keep coming as long as they are able!

Students fill the end zone, a solid block of orange.  Freshmen play follow-the-leader at this, their first game.  They’ll learn to “whoo” when their team gets a first down, to gallop when the band plays The William Tell Overture, and a dozen other little quirks of “our” school.  They will remember these things for a lifetime.  Eventually they, too, will arrive for game day in their orthopedic shoes, but they will still remember, and rise to sing the school song.

the houses of the holy.

We come to Champaign as they are coming to countless campuses all over the country.    Because it is game day – the start of the college football season. 

It is the first game, and we are all coming home.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Writing The Turd In The Pool

Posted on September 6, 2011 by pegoleg

For bloggers, each post is a work of art, lovingly and laboriously shaped.   We give our precious thoughts a sail, then set them afloat in the WordPress regatta.  

Sometimes, instead of the sleek, literary craft you hoped for, your blog post turns out to be the turd in the pool.    All the other kids are swimming away from it in terror and disgust.  

I know of what I speak.

A post I did last week, The Rubaiyat of Redneck Heaven, was a clever melding of classical poetry and hillbilly values.  At least, that’s what I thought.   My readers reaction?  I got nothing.  Nada.  You could have heard a cyber cricket chirping when this post hit the net.  Even my most loyal readers and family members stayed away in droves. 

When a post tanks, there are a couple of ways you can respond:

      1)   I meant for that to happen.  “Ha ha!  It’s not easy writing something so well that it appears that I thought it was good so you wouldn’t be SURE if it was supposed to be bad.  Wasn’t that a good joke?”

This way, nobody guesses that the rejection is causing your heart to bleed with the pain of a thousand cuts.

      2)   I don’t care.  “This blog is merely a cathartic online journal for me.  I don’t care if anyone else reads it.   Number of hits?  Bah!  Comments?  Pah!”

This reaction gives the impression that you are above such mundane considerations as public opinion. 

      3)   I am an artiste.  “You lesser beings just can’t comprehend my brilliance.  I pity you and your plebeian tastes.”

I knew guys who were able to skate through college using this attitude in place of real effort.  It also works well for many in the modern art world – you just have to have the chutzpah to pull it off.  I’ve had some success with this approach myself, as explained in my post of the same name.

For this latest post-bomb, though, I’ve decided to go with yet another response:

      4)  Ain’t too proud to beg.

I promise, I’ve had my blog pool power-washed and sanitized.

Please, please come back in – the water’s fine!

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | 35 Comments

The Rubaiyat of Redneck Heaven

Posted on September 2, 2011 by pegoleg

A selection of verses.

 

VIII
Whether at Potosi or Farmington,
Whether the Cup with Jack or Boone’s Farm run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The cigarette ashes of Life keep falling one by one.

IX
Each Morn a thousand semis brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the pickup truck of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the pop-up camper and motor home
Shall take spring turkey hunter and Ski-dooer away.

X
Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With long haul cowboys and snowbirds on the move?
Let Billy-Bob and Virgil bluster as they will,
Or Ma call to Supper–heed not you

XI
With me along the strip of alley strown
That just divides the mini-mart/gas station from the sown,
Where name of Vern and Bubba is forgot–
And Peace to the trucker (who ate all the burritos) on his golden Throne!

XII
The Big Book of Jokes underneath the Bough,
Cheap smokes, fireworks, whiskey, worms–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness–
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Thanks to my friend Stacey for the photo of this delightful oasis in the Missouri desert.  Apologies and thanks also to Omar Khayyam for the The Rubaiyat, a pretty good little poem.

Posted in Little Ditties | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Call Me Sheila (or What’s In A Name?)

Posted on August 31, 2011 by pegoleg

"Yo, Sheila! Teach! I gotta take a *&@%$ dump!"

Teaching children to use courtesy titles like “Mr.” and “Ma’am” is a small but important step we can take to encourage civility in daily life.

When my daughter Liz was in junior-high, I picked her up at school after an out-of-town volleyball game.  “Who drove to the game?” I asked as she buckled in.

“Oh, Sheila gave me a ride” she said.

“Sheila?” I asked, wracking my brain to think of a classmate by that name.  It momentarily escaped me that very few 6th graders were likely to have their driver’s license.

“That’s Kayla’s mom.” Liz answered.

“Sheila!” I exclaimed. “What do you mean, referring to Mrs. Becker that way?  I will not have you being disrespectful, young lady!”

“But mom” she protested, “That’s what she told us to call her!”

Trust But Verify being a good policy when dealing with either the Soviet Union or preteens, I checked my sources.  Sure enough.  A certain group of moms were now insisting the kids call them by their first names.   The “cool” moms. 

You know these women.  They have been pushing the envelope since preschool. 
They’ll do anything to establish their daughters (they are always moms of girls) at the top of the school social ladder.  They were the ones who ratcheted the birthday party competition up to DEFCON 2.  No longer could you have cake and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey at home.  Unless you want your kid to be totally disgraced, you’ve got to sponsor a birthday spa day, with mani/pedis and $25 gift bags.  Some of these parties cost more than my wedding!

Amy Poehler in "Mean Girls" defines the Sheila-Mom.

Now that the kids had reached the lofty heights of junior high, the “cool” moms thought it was time to be friends, instead of authority figures

I’m sorry, but I am not comfortable with 11 year-olds calling me by my first name.  We are neither peers, nor buddies.  It’s hard enough to parent preteens.  We need that little extra distance to help maintain discipline. 

With very young children, first names are just easier to handle.  Once they get to school, however, titles can and should be used.  Children should be taught respect for their elders, and reminded of it often.   I love how they use “ma’am” and “sir” in the military and down south.  This is one custom I would import north of the Mason/Dixon line in a heartbeat.  If they use first names for adults, they attach a title.  “Miss Sue” still sounds respectful.

I wouldn’t dream of referring to my parents’ friends, teachers, and elderly adults by their first names.  That holds true even today, and I’m over 50.   Their years have earned them my respect and deference.

As parents we should lead by example.  Let’s start with our elected leaders.  Even if we don’t like or agree with a politician, we should show respect for their position.  If kids hear us using proper titles: “President Obama” and “Governor Palin”, rather than the insulting adjectives we may attach to their names in our minds, it would go a long way to helping them learn respect for age and authority.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | 41 Comments

GS Phone Home

Posted on August 29, 2011 by pegoleg

ET rudely texting a friend while Drew Barrymore is talking to him.

We are witnessing the end of an era.  Ever since Alexander Graham Bell used his new-fangled invention to say “elementary” to his assistant, Watson, the phone call has been the communication gold standard.  Not any more.  People under 25 would rather text.

My daughter, Gwen, hasn’t voluntarily called home since she left for college.  If we’re lucky, we get the occasional text.   I keep explaining that the expensive gizmo attached to her hand is a telephone capable of making and receiving phone calls, but I’m not getting through.

I don’t like texting.  For one thing, it’s a lot of work.

People my age struggle with the tiny keyboard.  We squint at it through our drug-store cheater glasses, tongues sticking out as we hit the wrong keys and try to figure out how to punctuate.  Mrs. Harrison taught me to use the shift key in typing class almost 40 years ago, and it’s worked just fine ever since.  How come you don’t use the shift key for punctuation anymore?  How am I supposed to unlearn the habits of 40 years and get up to speed on this thing?

With a phone call, you get to hear the other person’s voice.  You can tell a lot by tone and inflection.  LOLs and ROFLMAOs don’t provide quite the same nuance. You can also get an idea of where they’re calling from, a real plus for the inquiring parent. 

I don’t want to text my kids in case they’re driving.  Liz and Gwen both say they would never text while driving.  How stupid do I look?  Gwen doesn’t actually have a car at school, but she could be walking when my text comes through.  Looking down at her phone instead of watching where she’s going, she could very well run into a plate glass window or tumble down an open manhole.  That’s only funny in a Roadrunner cartoon.

Nothing about texting drives me crazier, though, than the texter’s apparent conviction that “anytime, anywhere” is a reasonable mantra.

How many times have you been having a conversation with a kid who keeps glancing at their lap?  The slight twitching of the arms and their fake, interested expression, and you know they are gone.  Their thumbs are typing away under the table.   They’re still communicating with you, though – loud and clear.  They’re telling you that their electronic conversation is a lot more interesting than your “yadda, yadda, blah, blah”.

Can we say, rude? 

Then there’s the physical toll all this is taking.  Like I keep telling Gwen, in another 50 years today’s kids are all going to have the carpel tunnel so bad, they won’t be able to function. 

We’re going to end up with an entire generation of people who can’t work because they have crippled their thumbs.  This will put a tremendous burden on society.  Everyone will be on Social Security disability at once, and the system will go bankrupt.  The United States of America will no longer be a world leader.  After all, opposable thumbs are what set us apart from the rest of the animals, and allowed us to stand upright, and use tools like a stick to get ants out of a formicary (I saw a National Geo special about monkeys doing that – really interesting), and evolve into people who invented cars and the Sham-wow.  

China will take over our country because Chinese characters don’t lend themselves to texting, so their thumbs will be safe.  We will fall just like Rome to the Vandals (or was it the Visigoths?) because there will be nobody with thumbs to do any work or operate weapons. 

I can only thank God that I won’t have to pay to support all these selfish, texting teenagers turned thumb-less, middle-aged, lay-abouts because in 50 years, I will be dead.  Or at least so senile that all I’ll care about is finger painting with my own feces.  In any event, whether dead or senile, I won’t be very aware of my surroundings, so let me take the opportunity now to say, in advance, that I TOLD YOU SO!

Anyway, I just can’t figure out why Gwen doesn’t call me. 

GS, phone home.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

How I Did My Groove Thang With Earth, Wind & Fire On Cloud Nine – Almost

Posted on August 25, 2011 by pegoleg

The local YMCA is being renovated.  I’m sure it will end up being a workout Mecca the likes of which we have never seen.  In the meantime, it’s a pain in the butt.

They closed the main rooms and moved all the weight machines, free-weights, stair climbers and treadmills out.  Now they’re scattered around the hallways, the pre-school rooms, even the laundry room.

If you find the machine you are looking for, chances are it will be jammed cheek-to-jowl with its neighbor. You have to synchronize your movements or you risk an elbow to the ribs. The other day I was lucky enough to find a treadmill with a little breathing room  – in the fourth stall of the men’s room. 

The worst thing, though, is that the little TVs attached to the treadmills don’t work.  No TV!  Why has God singled me out for the greatest suffering the world has ever known? But I don’t complain.   I’m using this opportunity to enjoy some favorite music on my MP3 player. 

Today’s selection was vintage Earth, Wind and Fire.  Funky, funky, FUNK-ay!  Boy, does that get me pumped up.  I dialed up the volume and was in the zone, really feeling it.  But I held it in.  I didn’t want to be THAT woman; the chubby, middle-aged white one, shaking her groove thang to music nobody else can hear, right in front of God and everyone.

There is another regular at the Y who already fits that bill.  This lady marches to the beat of a different drummer, both physically and mentally.  I can’t tell how old she is – could be anywhere from 30 to 50.   She has starkly arched eyebrows and a red ring outlining her mouth.  I think those parts are tattooed on.  With her pale lips, it’s not a good look. 

She plugs in to her music and does a dance/walk workout on the treadmill, with a low, rolling dip of the hip every 3rd beat.  She looks neither left nor right, always straight ahead with a slightly haughty expression.  It’s like she’s practicing for the chorus of West Side Story. 

I’ve whined in past posts about how sweaty it gets in the treadmill room, but I didn’t know how good I had it.  The Green Gym, where I worked out tonight, is not air conditioned and makes the old room seem like an Arctic ice floe.  It’s hotter than Dutch love, as my brother-in-law Pat would say. 

I was really getting into it tonight, despite the heat.  I dialed up the speed and incline on the treadmill, and was working up a full head of steam, keeping time with the music. 

(For “Boogie Wonderland”, I recommend a 2.0 incline, 4.0 MPH speed.*)

My heart rate was at the top of the “cardio workout” zone on the monitor, making its way to the “grab the paddles” zone.

The sauna-like atmosphere was not enhanced by the hot flash I was having.  I was sweating buckets.  The music thrummed, and my heart was everywhere, working overtime, throbbing in my chest and my head until it seemed it would push my eyeballs out of their sockets.  The pressure built and pounded and pounded and thrummed and I thought,
        “This is it.  I am going to stroke-out; right here, right now.”

“My feverish, red self is going to collapse and shoot off this treadmill like George Jetson walking Astro, and I’m going to hit the poor guy working out 1 foot behind me and knock him over like a bowling pin.”

In that split second, when it seemed I might die, I thought, “I wonder if the heavenly choir that meets me at the pearly gates will be Earth, Wind and Fire?”

Now, that would be cool.  What a welcoming committee!  I don’t even know if any of them are dead, but maybe, my fevered brain thought, your heavenly choir takes whatever form you want it to.

Even with the inducement of meeting Earth, Wind and Fire, though, I did not want to die today.  I found the strength to reach out a trembling hand and dial down the speed, and tried to calm my racing heart.  I spent the rest of my workout matching the treadmill speed to the slow songs.

(For “After The Love Has Gone”, may I suggest a .5 incline, 2.3 MPH speed.*)

 When it’s your turn to go, what heavenly choir do you want to meet you?

 

*Your results may vary depending on the specific treadmill, length of your legs, and whether the Earth, Wind & Fire CD is studio or live in concert.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 36 Comments

Biggest Loser: Family Edition. How Low Can You Go?

Posted on August 23, 2011 by pegoleg

The gloves have come off in the family weight loss challenge, and it isn’t pretty.

Get thee behind me, fudge demon!

When my sister, Terry, first suggested that the women in my family use this summer to lose weight and get fit, I joined in.  (Check out the “Biggest Loser” category in the right-hand column for more about the challenge.) I had no thought of personal gain.  The cash money and valuable prizes to be awarded to the winner mean nothing to me.  All I care about is being there to support and motivate my dear sisters, Mom and sister-in-law in their quest for better health.

Not all in my family are so noble. 

I am shocked, nay, chagrined at the depths to which some of them are prepared to sink.  Recent actions give new meaning to what was once just a limbo-contest query: how low can you go?

Let’s begin with my sister Mary Kay.  As the oldest, she would be expected to set a good example for the rest of us, right?  Yet she went to the extreme of having root canal surgery just to lose weight.  She lost 3 pounds.  3 pounds, in less than 3 days!  I’m not sure how much of that weight loss was actual tooth material, and how much was due to loss of appetite from pain. 

That’s not playing fair.  Excruciating pain is an appetite suppressant, which violates the spirit, if not the letter of the law of competition.

Mary Kay, I know this little tactic cost you almost $1,000, but maybe you should ask yourself a more important question:  What price honor?  

Even worse than Mary Kay’s underhanded move, was that perpetrated by my sister Libby. 

It’s not enough that she chooses to undergo chemotherapy this summer, when we just so happen to have big money riding on the weight-loss challenge.  Coincidence?  You decide.  As I’ve explained to every family member who would listen, that clearly gives her an unfair advantage, what with possible nausea and vomiting.  No one else is willing to call her on it, though, because having cancer is like having a get-out-of-jail-free card.  I wonder if they will all be so forgiving of her latest stunt.

Last week Lib visited Mackinac Island in our home state of Michigan.  I was glad to hear she was getting out and about.  If you’ve ever been to Mackinac, you know that the island is known for 3 things:

1)      The Grand Hotel
2)      Horse drawn carriages (no cars)
3)      Fudge

When I got home from work on Friday, I found a pound of deliciously decadent Mackinac Island fudge waiting in my mailbox like a coiled cobra, ready to strike at my meaty thighs.

I’m sure the post office sniffer-dogs do a great job finding drugs, explosives and such, but they clearly need more training in catching the truly dangerous stuff: Diet bombs. 

I called my Mom to lodge a protest at these underhanded tactics, only to discover she was happily enjoying her souvenir pound of Murdicks Maple Walnut fudge.  Instead of validating my outrage, she reminded me to send Lib a thank you note.

Like hell I will!  This masquerade of generosity does not fool me; it is a clear case of diet sabotage.  

When Lib was a baby I changed her diapers, played with her – I practically raised her.  And how am I repaid?  With an assortment box of Chocolate Macadamia Nut and Traverse City Black Cherry temptation, for the sweet love of the baby Jesus!

I guess the good thing is, now we all know where we stand in this thing.  No more Ms. Nice Guy. 

Release the dogs of war, and to the victor goes the spoils.

Posted in Biggest Loser: Family Edition | Tagged , , , , , , | 36 Comments

It’s Hip To Be Square…Right?

Posted on August 22, 2011 by pegoleg

That guy from Revenge of The Nerds is probably considered ironic now.

I’m having trouble getting a handle on the “ironic” style.

Near as I can tell, it involves hipsters wearing (or doing) things that would normally be considered old-fashioned, childish or even nerdy.  But there’s some sort of wink-and-a-nod involved that makes it clear to others that you are not serious; on the contrary, you are making fun of those who wear or do these things for real.

How do I tell what is ironic, and what is just plain nerdy?  Here are some of my questions:

Does it matter what you’re doing when you wear it?
            Pocket protector:
                         – enlarging your ear gauges – ironic
                         – using a graphing calculator – not ironic

Does it have to do with location?
            Used bowling shoes:                                            
                       – worn at a coffee shop – ironic                  
                       – worn at the bowling alley – not ironic, slightly icky

 Does the rest of the outfit matter? 
            White gym socks: 
                       – with painted-on, unisex jeans and artfully waxed hair – ironic
                       – with work pants and a mullet – not ironic

 Does your career choice matter?
           Speedy Oil Change shirt with “Gene” embroidered on the pocket: 
                        – you are a barista at Starbucks – ironic
                        – you are a mechanic at Speedy Oil Change and your name is “Gene”  –                          not ironic

Does your age matter?
            Playing dodgeball: 
                         – 20-somethings playing for shots at a club – ironic
                         – 10-year-olds in gym class – not ironic

Does it matter how long you’ve had the item?
            Big, black eyeglasses from 1960:
                         – Just bought for $199 online – ironic
                         – Purchased new in 1960 and worn every since – not ironic

Is it a matter of attitude?
            Farah Dad ‘N Lad slacks, white socks, black glasses (w/taped bridge):
                         – worn with a supercilious smirk – ironic
                         – worn with an earnest, sincere expression – not ironic

Looking over my questions, I have a sinking feeling I know what the answer will turn out to be: 

                If you have to ask if something is “ironic” – nerd.

Posted in General Ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments