Month: November 2008

And so it begins. Every Christmas it never fails that I end up shopping mostly for myself. This year, I’m afraid, will be no different. The bargains are just too amazing to pass up. Oh. Ended a sentence with a preposition. Sorry. Trying again: The bargains are just too amazing to pass up, bitches.

There. Better, yes?

Mr. X and I went out Friday to begin our holiday shopping. I warned him ahead of time that my “holiday shopping” excursions are usually very selfish, narcissistic events. We planned to go to Georgetown, then Bloomingdales because, as we all know, say it with me: “It’s like no other store in the world.” Mommy is at fault for my Bloomingdales addiction as it is the only place she would take me shopping for clothes since the 70’s. Well, until they closed that Bloomingdales and made it into a UConn satellite campus. Then we trekked to the Fag Ship Flagship at 59th Street. How I miss not living close to that store…

We blasted through Georgetown in a couple hours and headed north to Bloomingdales the Eurotrash Mothership in Chevy Chase.

The racks were marked at 40% off. Oh. My. God. Having worked in the buying office from hell, and for the dandy designer from hell who seems to be having his own holiday discount issues, I know all too well that you just don’t go deeper than 30% before the holidays. You just don’t. It’s retail-suicide. Having to take discounts deeper than 40% must have the entire garment district in 911-panic mode. Makes me wonder if they are cutting back severely on their cocaine orders. Or at least not risking bringing it to work anymore for fear someone uses it as an excuse to include them in the next round of layoffs.

Racks at 40% off made me positively gleeful. And they were allowing coupons and gift cards back. What the hell is going on? How bad is retail really doing?

On to Lord and Taylor. Mr. X shares my sentiment that Lord & Taylor has careened downhill faster than Britney did in the post-Federline years, but we poked our heads in anyway. Racks? 50% off. This, my friends, is where I obtained the coups of the month:

Chantelle Bra
Original Price: $64.00
Final Price after discounts, coupons, additional % off: $15.99

Wacoal Bra
Original Price: $51.00
Final Price after discounts, coupons, additional % off: $16.23

Le Mystere Bra
Original Price: $72.00
Final Price after discounts, coupons, additional % off: $26.99

People, screw the economy. Get out there and take advantage while it’s out there for the taking. Mr. X and I refuse to acknowledge a recession. So should you. It’s the only way to get through this. Besides, if that’s not a reason, how about this?

It’s tax-free DC week. Go! Run! Get those bargains!

If there is even the remotest possibility that as an adult, you may become a teacher at a very hoity-toity Connecticut private school where the famous of the famous send their children for a high quality education, you might want to consider not starring in your own personal rendition of the Great American Strip Off, no matter how far away you are from home.

Let’s bring it back to 1996. My high school friend, K, and I went to a party in New York City. Someone rented out a bar in Union Square for a bash. At some point during the evening, I left and K decided it would be funny to take off her underwear in the bathroom and then rejoin the party and hand them to her boyfriend. Unfortunately, when she exited the bathroom, the heel of her shoe slid across a particularly slippery and freshly waxed floor and K went tumbling to the ground showing everyone a particularly slippery and freshly waxed vagina. Also very unfortunate was that she was wearing that dress of the mid 90’s. You remember it. You saw it on those girls in Queens whose boyfriends had neon lights under their cars – hoochie, tight, spandex, – not the kind that just floats back down to its original location.

K tried desperately to pull her dress down to cover her goods, but the debacle resulted in a Sunday morning phone call to me where she said, “Everyone saw my cooch!”

I actually didn’t believe her. I thought she was making it up for the comedic effect. And who could blame her? Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

However, six months later, we were at a bar drinking the night away with Connecticut’s finest. In walked a man who I knew from an old temp job I had out of college. I said hello and introduced him to K. He looks her up and down, smiles and says, “Yeah, I remember you. You were at that party in the city that night…panties in your pocket.” K turned beet red. Then she turned to me and said, “That guy saw my cooch!”

What K doesn’t know is that this was the source of much comedy in my family. The other night after I came home from our reunion, my dad said, “Was cooch there?” I think that will forever be her name in my parents house, which isn’t so bad considering they can’t remember to open the garage door before backing out. No. I’m not kidding about that…

And speaking of the reunion the other night, K said, “There’s a postscript to that story by the way.” I said, “Yessss?”

“That guy is married and has a kid now. And he’s in my class. And I didn’t put it together until he came in for a parent teacher conference. And then, during our meeting, the expression on my face must have suddenly changed because I realized that this guy who I was trying to talk to all serious about his kid’s future, this guy is the guy who saw my cooch!”

Ten years ago this month, I left Connecticut to move to Atlanta. Since then, I’ve lived in the ATL, Phoenix, Baltimore and D.C. Connecticut will always be home though. They don’t make friends like they did in high school…ones who will help you hairspray your bangs so that they stand upright from your forehead, or ones that will call you in sick to school from a payphone!

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, ten of my high school friends and I found each other and organized a “reunion” this past weekend. Kids, I never had so much fucking fun in my life. I told Mr. X enough high school stories last night to probably make him wonder if he could trade the 35 year old me for the younger, more reckless version. Well, maybe not.

Anyway, I’ll have to break the weekend into a few posts. There’s just no room to cover it all in one.

My “longest friend” as I call her, my kindergarten partner in crime and I still are in regular contact. Of the eleven of us, all have been married except me. Two are divorced and I’m far beyond impressed at their strength to see a situation as a loss and get out. (Probably the reason I haven’t been married. Too scared I wouldn’t be able to leave.) Two had major problems conceiving babies. Another had major problems in labor and delivery – enough to make me reconsider having a child ever. One had a C-Section and felt them cutting her. One is pregnant now. One just had a baby and still dragged herself out to see us. One affirmatively does not want kids. One lives in Delaware. I’m in DC. One is in upstate Connecticut. But the rest of them are within several miles of each other. See, Connecticut is one of those places that’s so nice that people never really complain about it. And for the most part, they never leave. I wouldn’t have left except Atlanta Boy tricked me. I’ve been trying to claw my way back there ever since.

We covered a lot of ground this weekend. Catching up on 17 years of details in everyone’s lives, as well as in other people’s lives who we knew but weren’t in our little circle with was difficult. I’ve lived a boring life compared to what’s happened to some of our high school classmates.

One of our guy-friends was arrested in a major drug and gun sting operation when Federal Marshalls disguised as Fed Ex guys delivered his drugs to his front door. (Who has drugs fed exed to their house?)

Two of our classmates who never liked each other in high school somehow saw fit to get married and have kids. However, big problems in that marriage, a cheating husband, and they are on their way to divorce-land.

Some chick I worked at Pizza Hut with (shut up!) dropped dead from a heart attack. In her 30’s. More drugs.

My high school boyfriend allegedly married someone who looks just like me.

One of the best stories, however, came from inside our own group.

It seems that when you catch your husband cheating on you, finding a charge for match.com on your joint credit card isn’t the lowest low. Nor is finding his profile on match where he says outright that he’s married but looking to mess around. Nor would it be the day you kick him out of your house, having waited through holidays and children’s birthdays with the knowledge of what lay on your credit card bill and online.

It would seem that the lowest low would be a couple years later, when your now ex-husband tells you that through a series of operations we know as “transgender,” he’s going to become a woman.

The Sunday morning mass emails among the girls simply said, “You win.”

10) I’ll finally be able to retire my naive hope that Giuliani will pop his head out from under a Yankees bleacher and say, “Just kidding!” and get his ass back in the race.

9) That I won’t have to listen to people whine about how sad it is that Obama’s grandmother died, as if they knew either of them. Please. That’s not sad. He’s forty-something. He had a grandma all that time. Try losing a grandma at 8 because there was so much space between generations because your parents and grandparents chose to do something novel like, oh, wait to have kids when they could afford them instead of popping them out every 16 years and having five living generations at a time and expecting the rest of the country to pay for the kids. Now, that’s sad. Did I digress? Oh. Maybe.

8 ) The word “Maverick.”

7) People shoving election paraphernalia in my face or under my windshield wipers.

6) Having to listen to people complain about how Bush being in the White House for 8 years ruined their lives for one reason or another. It’s old already. It was old back in 2003.

5) Minorities everywhere bitching and moaning about how they are being held back by the white man. It’s all you now kids. Let’s see what you do with it.

4) The fear that Cindy McCain could be our First Lady and we’d have to follow her fashion choices for at least four years. Yikes.

3) That maybe for the 2012 election I’ll have more faith in one candidate over another to actually make up my mind earlier than when I’m standing at the voting booth.

2) Wondering if John McCain will take off his blazer so I can see what’s up with the arms.

1) That the worst of the economy is probably behind us as evidenced by the elation in the streets Tuesday and the lines for the WaPo on Wednesday. Public positivity alone can correct the economy, fuck your bailout.

Time to buy buy buy. Stocks. Real Estate. Get going. Because in 10 years when the Dow is at 15,000 and real estate prices are on the up and up, we’ll all be kicking ourselves wishing we bought more foreclosures and invested more in our 401K’s.