The Top Ten Reasons I will Never Be a "Hipster"...

....for better or worse.

10. I get far too excited over coupons. I recently responded to a snail mail consumer survey which promised some particularly exceptional ones in return for my efforts and opinions. I eventually received a coupon for a large sum of change off the purchase of a box of Dulcolax. As I hadn't indicated any issues with constipation, I'm uncertain why I was targeted for this particular offer of savings. Or maybe that's the jig...

9. I don't eat sushi, but I do eat fruit roll-ups. Apparently this isn't a parallel distinction of sophistication. Whatever. The strawberry ones are still as good now as they were when I was seven. Not many things in life are like that.

8. I don't have any skinny jeans and I've an insufficient store of angst. I might be able to consume a significant quantity of wine and work myself into a frenzy over U.S.-Cuba relations, air pollution, and my lack of spirituality, in order to simulate some degree of existentialist drama.

7. The only country outside the U.S. that I've visited is Canada, and my cultural exposure there was limited to my experiences with other patrons of the Thunder Bay Mall and the guests and staff at my hotel.


6. I do not play or have knowledge of a trendy instrument. I can perform a vague rendition of "Little Drummer Boy" on a keyboard or "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on a viola, but that is about the extent of my musical aptitude. I should note that I am above average at whistling.


5. I don't own any ironic t-shirts. Since the Republicans are predominantly out of office, I don't even own any politically offensive ones anymore. I really should work out a Bachmann tee, but she's almost so easy to mock that it takes some of the fun out of it. If I did make one, it would be screen-printed with a houndstooth pattern.

4. I am woefully ill-informed on a broad range of "underground" bands. I had time to keep up with this type of info when I was a teenager and divided my efforts between learning stuff, working at the drug store, and smoking, but now I have to sleep and work and clean up children's puke all the time. Sorry uber-cool punk bands- I'd love to know ya'.

3. I have begun to talk at length about my and others' present or previous health afflictions. I thought you weren't supposed to be inclined to do that until at least your mid-forties.
"Thirty is the new twenty", my ass.*

2. During the recent salmonella scare, I did not run to whole foods and buy organic peanut butter. That not only makes me insufficient material for hipster-dom, but a horrible human being in general. If you don't have to stir your peanut butter, you are probably trying to kill everyone in your household. Even Michelle Bachmann knows that.

1. I have not posted an anti-mass media diatribe anywhere on the internet in at least two months. I have, however, mocked several television news personalities in the presence of some acquaintances. Some (possibly most) of the mocking had to do with "Stupid Al Roker and his Smuckers jam," so it wasn't necessarily legitimate, hard-core criticism, but I think it should count for something.


*Get off my lawn.

He won't call me mama, but he sniffs my hair.

Sometimes the realizations of Jack's innermost thoughts and feelings are manifest in ways that require some really creative translation.

He missed me today and I could tell, because the first thing he did after body slamming me when he got off the bus was to grab a tangled wad of my curls, press it against his face, and inhale deeply. I suppose comfort smells like Pantene to him.

Sophie told me I'm a very "'telligent Mom", and Noel didn't entirely roll his eyes at the comment, so I'll take that as a double compliment.


Were it not for the fact that I fell off the deck trying to step onto a folding chair, absent-mindedly put on a shirt that had deodorant marks all over the sides, went outside in it, and did yardwork for half an hour, and am pretty certain the neighbors saw me riding my seven-year-old's very small "princess" bike up the alley because I was too lazy to walk it back to the garage, I could almost feel like a real winner...

Another Forty-Five Minutes of My Life I'll Never Get Back...

It's pretty much self-explanatory.