Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Self-righteous cyclists have to go!

The current Mayor of Seattle is known as the “Bike Mayor.”  As if a city overrun by self-righteous cyclists needed any help being more obnoxious, they now have one of their own at the helm.  I suppose I shouldn’t assume that Mayor McGinn is self-righteous – I’ve actually met him a few times and he seems smart and nice enough – but he is definitely a power-to-the-cyclist type.  He is well known for bike commuting and even had his bike stolen from City Hall, which I must admit, I found hilarious.  I’m guessing he definitely has the “give cyclists three feet of space on all sides” bumper sticker – the one with the three little footprints – on his car.  (For years I thought that bumper sticker was an anti-abortion statement – something along the lines of “even three second old zygotes have footprints.”  Note to cycling community: that graphic is not clear or effective.)  To really clinch his Bike Mayor status McGinn recently hired a controversial bicycle advocate to fill a nearly $100,000 per year “Transportation Advisor” position.  With that in mind, I’m going to quit biting my tongue and start saying whatever I want, no matter how politically insensitive, because if this David Hiller guy can get a job like that for publically saying, "I'd love to hang these people (drivers who injure cyclists) up by their toenails at the edge of town and paint `killer' across their chest and let them hang there until the buzzards peck their eyes out,” I think I could come up with some high-earning doozeys myself!  Well, Mayor McGinn will be up for reelection in two years and I just might have to run against him on an anti-self-righteous cyclist platform. 

Mike McGinn, Seattle's "Bike Mayor"

I should be clear that I’m not anti-cycling.  I enjoy bike riding and have fond memories of all my past bikes – back to my very first, a small purple model with training wheels.  My first “big girl” bike was bright pink, with a white plastic basket on the front, streamers flowing from the handlebars, an awesome banana seat and the word “Tapestry” painted on the side.  The Tapestry and I shared many great adventures until I got my first ten-speed – a metallic red beauty that I dearly loved.  See, I’m not a bike hater; I just hate a good portion of the people that ride them.  It’s like the saying, “Guns don’t kill people.  People with guns kill people.”  Well, bikes aren’t self-righteous, people who ride them are.

Cyclists always seem to want it both ways.  They want to utilize roads and have the rights of motorized vehicles, but think they don’t have to abide by any of the laws or uphold any of the responsibilities.  Cyclists pass on the right, turn without advance notice, weave between cars and whiz through intersections without bothering to stop.  All this would be annoying enough, but the real kicker is their attitude of righteous indignation when they perceive their precious rights have been infringed upon.  Guess what?  Cars accidentally bump into each other all the time – sometimes people are careless or distracted or simply don’t see something.  We all know that automobiles are dangerous – I was reminded of that fact recently when a careless driver sped through a red light, causing a major collision with me.  After making fairly certain I wasn’t seriously injured, I called 911 and acted like a mature adult.  I didn’t jump out of the car and scream at the other driver, even though the accident was totally his fault.  We take risks when we get behind the wheel.  Granted, drivers are more protected by the frame of the car and safety equipment like seat belts and air bags, while cyclists are very exposed, but taking that risk is a choice cyclists make.  And when an accident happens or nearly happens, most drivers don’t scream at and berate the other person.  (I say “most” because I do realize there is some serious road rage out there these days.) 

Cyclists on the other hand, consistently exhibit very poor behavior.  I’ve had cyclists yell at me and threaten me on several occasions and have watched them do it to other people countless times.  My first experience with a self-righteous cyclist was in high school.  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, school was out and I was cruising along Highway 101.  I started slowing down to make a right turn into the driveway of my mom’s office building and noticed two cyclists heading in the same direction, about to cross the same driveway.  The male cyclist made it across the driveway before I got there, but the female cyclist and I were clearly arriving at the exact same time.  I saw her.  She saw me.  We made eye contact and did the car/bike version of when you’re sharing a walkway with someone and, in trying to go around each other, you do the awkward back-and-forth in the same direction thing a number of times until someone starts laughing and says, “Shall we dance?”  Traffic was backing up and it seemed liked the cyclist was going to let me go, so I went.  She went too and we crashed into each other.  Well, crashed might be a strong word seeing as I was barely moving.  Her left pedal scraped the bottom of my passenger door and she tipped over.  I stopped and the male cyclist ran over to see if she was OK.  Before I could get out of the car, she sprang to her feet, pushed her cycling companion out of the way and stormed around to my driver’s side.  She was wild-eyed and screaming profanities.  Completely terrified, I rolled up my window, locked my door and hunkered down.  Male cycling companion kept trying to back her off, but she pushed him away over and over as she pounded on my window and yelled at me to get out of the car.  I considered her request (not really) and decided against complying.  Eventually my mom noticed what was going on and came to my rescue, as did several workers and customers from the nearby A & W.  As it turned out, psycho bike lady was fine.  She had a tiny scratch on her leg, while I had a gigantic scratch in my paint.  She went along her merry cycling way and I had to suffer the wrath of my parents for scratching my practically brand new car. 

In the years since, I’ve experienced the fury of self-righteous cyclists several times.  One time, I had a cyclist scream and shake his fist at me for almost hitting him when he flew through a stop sign, going the wrong way on a one-way street.  I know, how DARE I?!  I can’t even count how many times I’ve watched a cyclist weave in between two lanes of stopped traffic and then get indignant when they almost get hit by a mirror as traffic begins moving again.

My most recent cyclist run-in happened in my front yard.  We were, despite our extreme reluctance, having a garage sale.  Our neighborhood has a community-wide sale annually and, over the past couple of years as our basement has filled with boxes of baby gear and our garage has become nothing but a parking zone for strollers, trikes and various toddler-mobiles, we’ve begrudgingly considered participating.  This year the motivation finally overpowered the reluctance and we decided to go for it.  We were ready bright and early and I was thrilled to make our first sale mere moments after the official start time.  Our second sale was $50 for two toddler riding toys and some baby clothes.  This garage sale business was better than I thought it would be.  Customers kept coming and I was giddy every time we sold something I considered to be an old, unwanted piece of crap for cold hard cash.  Someone paid $5 for a 1970’s era vacuum cleaner that may not have even worked anymore.  I honestly would have paid them $10 to haul it away for me.  Things were going great. 

Early afternoon brought a brief lull in shopper traffic.  As we sat on our front steps watching Chester play in the yard, we noticed a car about a block and a half away.  The driver had her window down and was talking to a cyclist who had pulled up next to her; he clearly wasn’t happy.  After their brief conversation, the driver parked and got out of her car to check out our sale.  I believe this woman, who was probably in her mid-60s and all of about five feet tall and 90 pounds, would have been a $50 customer at least.  She headed straight for the baby items and had “proud grandma” written all over her.  Sadly, I never got to find out if my newly honed garage sale instincts were correct because Jackass Cyclist ruined everything.  He followed Sweet Shopping Grandma to our house and brought his bike onto the sidewalk to continue yelling at her.

Jackass Cyclist:  Hey!  Are you aware that you are required by law to give me three feet of space between my bike and your car?!

Sweet Shopping Grandma (as she tried retreating to the other side of the lawn):  I’m done talking to you about it.  Please leave me alone.  

Jackass Cyclist:  No, we’re not done talking about it.  You put my physical safety in danger.

At this point, both Matt and I stood.  I picked Chester up and Matt approached the cyclist.

Sweet Shopping Grandma (as she scurried to her car): I don’t have to listen to this.  Goodbye. 

Jackass Cyclist (continued yelling after her):  Blah, blah, blah, blah, three feet, blah, blah, physical safety, blah, blah, blah!!!!!!!!

Matt: I really don’t need this confrontation on my property, so please move along.

Jackass Cyclist: I’m not on your property.  This is a public sidewalk.

Matt:  Actually, it is my property.  It’s a public right-of-way easement through my property.

As I attempted to distract Chester from the cyclist’s jackassy-ness, I rolled my eyes and thought “Oh boy, he picked the wrong guy to argue with about private property versus public space.”

Jackass Cyclist: That’s right, it’s a public sidewalk.

Matt: OK, you shouldn’t be operating your “vehicle” on the sidewalk.

Jackass Cyclist:  Oh come on, are you really going to go there?

Matt:  Sure.

Jackass Cyclist:  Well, you invited that person onto your property, so you invited this conflict.

Me: (Another huge eye roll.)

Matt: We’re having a garage sale.  And you already scared her away so just leave.

Jackass Cyclist: Well she endangered my physical safety.  Do you know that she endangered my physical safety?

Matt:  Do you want me to call the cops or are you just going to leave?

Jackass Cyclist: Well, she endangered my safety and you invited . . . (Suddenly, Jackass Cyclist seemed to notice that the person he was arguing with was 6’6” and looking very pissed off.  He deflated his Lycra, logo-covered chest, adjusted his aerodynamic sunglasses and pedaled away.)

I have no idea what originally happened to offend this guy’s cyclist sensibilities.  Maybe the driver did get too close to him, putting his safety at risk, but if that was the case, I’d bet both my evil, oil-consuming cars that it was a complete accident.  I appreciate that cycling is a good transportation alternative for some people, but the whiny, self-righteous attitude has got to go.  A bike-commuting friend and colleague of mine once told me that many hard-core cyclists consider themselves “Wild West cowboys” blazing trails in a heretofore bike-unfriendly transportation world.  I’ve watched quite a few Westerns over the years and I don’t recall any of the cowboys being so whiny.  Clint Eastwood says things like "Are you going to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie" not “Heeeeeey, you just endangered my physical well-being!”

 This is Clint Eastwood.  He's a badass.

This is a cyclist.  He's a jackass. 

(He isn't the exact one that appeared in my yard, but he looks just like him.  Except this one is smiling instead of whining and yelling.)

I may be anti-self-righteous cyclist, but I do support better infrastructure so people can ride bikes without facing the dangers created by a transportation system designed and built for cars (and so cars can utilize that system without bikes mucking it up).  However, the current economic reality is that we can’t even pay for the programs and infrastructure we already have.  A new revenue source is desperately needed, which is why my bid for mayor will center on new legislation requiring bikes to be licensed.  Under my administration, cyclists will pay a fee to license their bikes and must display a valid license plate to travel on roads, just like cars.  These licensing fees will fund special lanes and other infrastructure modifications to make our fair city safe and friendly for bikes.  That should make the self-righteous cyclists happy, right?  Even more importantly, this will allow other drivers to report the cyclists' spandex-clad asses when they break every traffic law ever recorded as they roll down the road.  Police will give traffic tickets to these cyclists and . . . Voilà, even more revenue!   Brilliant, right?  Yes, it is.  Vote Ronda  . . . The Equal Rights (and Responsibilities) for Bikes Mayor!



The Mystery of the Missing Musical Gene

I have a dirty little secret.  Well, it really isn’t that much of a secret and I suppose it isn’t technically what you’d call dirty, but here it is . . . I hate musicals.  Yeah that’s right, I hate musical theater – Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, Phantom of the Opera, all of them.  You might think this isn’t that big of a deal.  I know I’m probably not the only person in the world who can make a mile-long list of things I’d rather do in New York City than go to a Broadway show.  The problem is that I’m a performing arts presenter.  Hating musicals in my world is sort of like being a surgeon who can’t stand the sight of blood or a preschool teacher who hates kids.

I’ve never been able to pinpoint exactly why I don’t like musical theater.  I might simply be missing a gene.  It seems like I should like it; it’s a combination of things I’m very fond of.  I like music of all kinds, I enjoy theater and I love dance.  I’m not sure what it is about combining the three that makes me want to slit my wrists.  Shouldn’t combining good things result in a really, super, extra good thing?  I guess not.  Sometimes good things are better separately than combined.  I love strawberry Jello salad and pickles, for example, but that doesn’t mean I put pickles IN my strawberry Jello salad.   Such is my thinking about musicals – great live theater can tell a story powerfully, dance has the power to be profoundly moving, and I simply can’t imagine life without music – but put them together and it’s like somebody puked strawberry pickle Jello salad all over the stage.  Not good. 

It isn’t like I haven’t given musicals a chance.  I’ve seen many over the years, each time starting out with an open mind and genuinely trying to enjoy the experience.  No such luck.  Phantom put me to sleep.  Les Miserables made me miserable.  Little Shop of Horrors was more than a little horrifying.  I even went to a musical on Broadway in New York City once, thinking maybe if I saw one in the Mecca of Musicals, I’d finally “get it.”  It didn’t work.  Because I refused to pay full price, I picked from the half-price ticket options.  Aida seemed like a good bet.  I figured it couldn’t be too bad with music written by Elton John.  Who can resist Rocket Man, with his over-the-top outfits, wacky glasses and catchy tunes?  I don’t remember the story line of Aida – something about doomed lovers being buried alive.  I don’t know about you, but nothing makes me want to sing and dance more than the thought of being buried alive!  I don’t remember much more than that, partly because I was traumatized by severe boredom and partly because I spent the entire production squinting through the darkness at the program, counting down how many musical numbers were left like they were particularly difficult reps at the gym . . . “OK, Ronda, be strong, 13 down, 12 to go!  Come on, you can do it!”  The only live musical theater event I’ve ever remotely enjoyed was the musical thriller “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”  There is just something satisfying about the combination of song, dance and vicious, bloody murder.

It’s difficult to describe what musicals do to me.  You know how awful it is when you feel embarrassed for someone?  They’re making an ass of themselves or failing miserably in front of tons of people and you actually wish you could crawl under a rock for them.  Well, that’s how I feel when I watch musicals.  I know that doesn’t make sense.  Professionally produced musicals feature people who are incredibly skilled and talented.  The production is a result of hours of rehearsal.  I know this and I appreciate the talents of not only the performers, but the set designers, costume people, choreographers, lighting designers and everyone else involved.  All impressive and yet . . . no matter how well executed, people breaking into cheesy song and dance numbers seems so painfully awkward.  Nobody does that in real life.  You don’t get back to your desk after a particularly frustrating meeting and sing a show tune complete with Fosse jazz-hand choreography to explain it to your co-workers.  No, you simply roll your eyes and tell them in great detail how it took every ounce of energy you had to keep from lunging across the table and violently beating the bleeping bleep out of that bleeping passive-aggressive bleep who makes getting anything done bleepity-bleeping impossible.  Let’s face it - life is more Quentin Tarantino dialogue than Andrew Lloyd Webber song.

So, my best guess as to why musicals are so cringe-inducing for me is how ridiculously unrealistic they are.  Let me be even more specific:  I don’t mind unrealistic situations – I’m able to suspend belief for story’s sake and allow all sorts of improbable things to occur.  What I can’t stand is unrealistic behaviors.  I can pretend it’s possible for someone to save the world by jumping out of an exploding helicopter, landing in a car that happens to shoot missiles and chasing down bad guy aliens that have switched faces with unsuspecting school children.  What I can’t tolerate is if this hero randomly breaks into song and dance while he or she is doing it.  I mean, you’d definitely save the world from aliens if you could, right?  But who would sing a peppy song at the same time?  That’s not just ridiculous, it’s embarrassingly ridiculous!

To make matters more complicated and confusing, I actually occasionally enjoy musical movies.  Occasionally is the operative word, and the ones I like are typically Disney animated films.  I like Sebastian the Crab telling me in song how much better life is under the sea.  My son and I rock out to the jazz classic “Everybody Wants to be a Cat” from The Aristocats.  And those little mice singing “Cinderelly, Cinderelly, Cinderelly . . .” are simply adorable. 

In the non-animated musical movie category, I must confess to loving Grease.  Maybe it’s the hand jive or that surreal scene when Frankie Avalon descends from the “malt shop in the sky” as Teen Angel.  More likely, it’s that bitchin’ car, Greased Lightning.  I must be one of those girls who’s a sucker for a hot car, because I definitely get a little excited when I hear, “Well this car is automatic . . . it’s systematic . . . it’s hyyyyyyyyydromatic.  Why it’s Greased Lightnin’!”  And I can’t help being amused when a car is described in song as a “real pussy wagon.”  Best of all is Olivia Newton John’s transformation from boring goodie-two shoes Sandy to bad-ass sexpot Sandy.  What a pair of tight black pants and red high heels can’t do for a girl!  As much as I love the campy film version of Grease, I find the live stage version as wince-worthy as any other musical.  Maybe the unrealistic song and dance behavior doesn’t bother me as much on screen because the characters don’t seem as real.  Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta are about as real as an animated red Trinidadian crab with a Caribbean accent or talking mice that can sew a ball gown.  And everybody knows cartoon characters can get away with anything.  Wile E. Coyote has proved that time and time again.  If he can keep chasing Road Runner after being blown up by dynamite and squished by giant boulders, a cartoon character can definitely pull off singing and dancing in inappropriate situations without coming across as ridiculous.  Real live humans can’t do either. 

Apparently hating musicals is hereditary because my son seems to have inherited my disdain for the genre.  (This is why I’ve recently come to suspect a missing gene as the culprit.)  I must point out it isn’t that young Chester can’t sit through a performance.  Quite the contrary, he regularly sits, with rapt attention, through theater, music and dance performances.  I’ve been toting him along to all sorts of performing arts events since he was a baby. 

I recently accompanied Chester’s preschool class on a field trip to see a live musical production of Sleeping Beauty.  (My agreeing to chaperone this particular field trip should be taken as evidence of my extreme, unwavering love for the little guy and proof that I would, in fact, do ANYTHING for him.)  He loves the classic Disney version and is particularly transfixed by the scary awfulness of Maleficent, Mistress of All Evil.  (He always asks with wide-eyed fascination, “What are those things on her head, Mommy?”  My answer is that the two large twisted horn-like features atop Maleficent’s villainous cape are intended to evoke fear by calling to mind the evil of the devil.  This is my theory.  A good one, I think. 

Maleficent - "Mistress of All Evil"

I’m equally fascinated by Maleficent and, although I don’t get into this with Chester, I'm mesmerized because her attire looks like a darkly, exquisitely beautiful piece from an Alexander McQueen runway show.) 

Alexander McQueen Fall 2009

Alexander McQueen "Eclect Dissect" Fall 1997

Anyway, my big fear was that Chester would not appreciate a different version of Sleeping Beauty than the one he has become accustomed to and that he would be particularly annoyed with this version’s “Bad Fairy” who clearly wasn’t up to “Mistress of All Evil” snuff.  He tends to get things in his head a certain way and nothing else will do.  As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry – at least not about that. 

As I sat with the 4 and 5 year olds waiting for the show to begin, I could tell excitement was mounting.  Just about every 20 seconds, one of them would ask, “How much longer until it starts NOW, Chester’s Mommy?”  At long last, the lights dimmed and the show began.  It didn’t take long for the cast to break into song.  Chester squirmed.  Chester furrowed his brow.  Chester looked uncomfortable and said, in his loudest whisper, “Mommy, I want them to stop singing.”  I shushed him.  The next musical number came along and Chester sighed loudly, “Mommy, I DON’T like these singing parts.”  “I know, buddy, neither do I.”  “When are they going to STOP?”  “Soon.  They’ll stop soon.”  (Not soon enough, but what was I supposed to say?)  By the time the next song came along, Chester wasn’t even bothering to whisper anymore, “Mommy!  They’re singing AGAIN!  When is it going to be over?!”  I felt his pain and did my best to encourage him (and myself) to overcome the disability of the missing musical gene, “Be strong, just a few more.  You can do it!” 



FCSI: Las Vegas

I was in Las Vegas recently and it brought back fond memories of my college years.  Not because of the dancing and drinking and partying until the wee hours, although those certainly were similarities.  My college flashback was fueled more by reprising my role as a fashion police officer.

It’s a little known fact that I was Sergeant Simons of the Oregon State University Fashion Police Department – little known, because we were a small and self-proclaimed law enforcement unit.  We were way undercover – meaning our power and authority was not recognized or respected by anyone but ourselves.  The OSUFPD did not emerge as an official unit until my senior year, but I had years of training under my fashionable belt by then. 

I once read a quote that went something like, “True friends are people who dislike the same things as you.”  Isn’t that the truth?  My friend Molly and I used to spend sunny afternoons in between classes in the quad, critiquing the fashion choices of passersby as if we were a double-headed Joan Rivers at a red carpet event.  One day, we started feeling a little bad about our habit of entertaining ourselves by poking fun at others.  So, just to prove we could do it, we vowed to say something nice about the clothing of every single person that passed by.  It was harder than we thought.  Painful silences were occasionally punctuated with excited cries of, “Oh, oh, look, she has really cool shoes!” and “There!  Over there!  That’s a great shirt.”  It took a while, but we finally got on a roll, never mind that our comments were phrased more as questions and went along the lines of, “Um, um, um . . . she has really nice socks?”

By the time my senior year rolled around, my skills were razor sharp and I was ready for active duty, so I joined forces with a group of highly qualified fashion officers to found the OSUFPD.  In addition to general knowledge in fashion criminology, we all had special areas of expertise.  I was the Sergeant in charge of shoe offenses – a SHARC as it’s sometimes called on the street.  Sergeant Kerri specialized in the seedy world of men-in-spandex crimes, Sergeant Theresa was a skilled detective in the That-Makes-Your-Ass-Look-Flat Department and so on.  We were a crack team of fashion enforcement officials patrolling dormitories, lecture halls, the Memorial Union, labs, libraries and all points in between, our sole mission to protect and serve.  OK, our mission was really to entertain ourselves.  You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe. 

So there I was, in Las Vegas – a veritable Mecca of horrendous fashion crimes – without my partners in fashion-crime-prevention.  I suddenly knew what it must feel like for a police officer to be alone in the middle of a bank robbery.  “I need backup!  Somebody send backup!” 

Fashion criminals in general, and in Las Vegas in particular, can be categorized into two groups – those who don’t care enough to even make an effort and those who are, despite Herculean efforts, failing miserably.  The former group is made up of people who barely endeavor to comb their hair or brush their teeth, much less pull together a flattering outfit.  The latter group consists of those who clearly spend a lot of time, energy and money on grooming and dressing.  Sadly, their investments are completely overpowered by their terrible taste and judgment.  I could have brought in more money than all the slot machines combined issuing fashion citations for both types of offenses, but without the help of my trusty unit, all I could do was stake out and conduct research.  Any actual enforcement activities would have been far too risky without backup.  So, here is the result of my undercover investigation – a summary version of the Fashion Police Blotter for Las Vegas, Nevada, April 6-10, 2011.  

4/7, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m., Fanny packs, Forum shops

I’ve never seen so many fanny packs in all my life – not even in their late ‘80s/early ‘90s hay-day.  I understand the desire to have hands free for strolling and shopping.  I mean, you might want to take a photo of the free fountain show recounting the myth of Atlantis or you may need to send a text to a friend saying you think you just spotted Britney Spears at the Chrome Hearts store.  Let’s face it, hands are useful, but fanny packs are never acceptable.  They just aren’t.  Especially when securing them around your waist creates a fat roll that subsequently rests atop the fanny pack.  Allow me to suggest a messenger-style bag or any one of the many handbag options that feature both shoulder straps and cross-body straps.  You really can carry your stuff with ease, versatility AND style.

4/6, 8 p.m., Un-tucked dress shirts, Estiatorio Milos (and pretty much every day, time and place thereafter)

What is going on with the guy-trend of wearing nice, button-down shirts un-tucked?  This is a new and puzzling crime that calls for more research.  I have no problem with casual shirts being un-tucked, but guys, when your date is all dressed up for a night out and you’re wearing a dress shirt, please take the extra two seconds to avoid looking like a total slob by tucking it in.  This violation is compounded, and will be fined accordingly, when your entire frat house is traveling in a huge, un-tucked-dress-shirt pack. 

4/9, 11 p.m. – 2 a.m., Un-walkable shoes, Marquee dance club, Cosmopolitan

Let me say this: I love shoes and generally consider “sensible” a dirty word when used to describe them.  There is a time and place for “sensible” shoes.  It’s sensible to wear good running shoes when running a marathon, for example.  That said I have a deep and abiding love for the most insensible of shoes.  Shoes are fun, whimsical and profoundly sexy.  A sky-high stiletto can make a woman’s legs, posture and whole attitude sexy and powerful like nothing else.  But ladies, that only works if you can walk in the shoe.  You have to be able to move naturally and comfortably or the whole effect is ruined.  Having to take itsy-bitsy, teetering steps just makes you look ridiculous and uncomfortable.  And why in the world would you wear shoes like that to a dance club?  I know it’s a fine line, but the balance between form and function simply must be navigated with more finesse.  If you can’t walk in the shoes, you surely can’t dance in them, which explains the droves of women lined up in dance club bathrooms to purchase over-priced flip-flops.  If you were going to end up pairing your little dancing dress with flip-flops, you should have just started out that way and saved yourself some money – both on the flip-flops and on the citation I’m going to have to write you for those absurd shoes.

4/8, 4 p.m., Sloppy track suit, Palazzo shops

I observed a man and his wife in the Christian Louboutin boutique.  The husband was wearing a sloppy track suit, not to mention talking loudly on his cell phone, which is justification for an additional fine.  It’s obnoxious enough to be blabbing at top volume on your phone in any public place, but in a shrine to shoe greatness is completely unacceptable.  The wife was dressed to the nines and loading up on shoes.  The whole scene distracted me from my mission of finding the perfect pair of nude, platform pumps.  I made mental notes on how the scene would go down if I was able to take action:

“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?” 

“Uh, no officer, what did I do wrong?” 

“Sir, your wife just dropped about $5,000 on exquisite designer shoes and you’re wearing a gross track suit.” 

“Oh, yeah, I guess I am.” 

“You are, and it has stain on it.” 

“I’m sorry, officer, I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

“Well, despite being rich, you’re clearly lazy and have very bad taste.” 

“You’re absolutely right, officer.” 

“I know I am.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“Look, I’m going to give you a warning, but only because I don’t want to mess with your wife’s shoe budget.  Don’t let it happen again.”

4/8, 3 p.m., Tacky, too-tight t-shirts, Las Vegas Strip

Tight, rhinestone-bedazzled Celine Dion t-shirts in and of themselves are a misdemeanor, but when Celine’s face gets stretched beyond recognition across an egregious “muffin top,” the offense crosses over into fashion felony.  I can’t imagine why anyone would wear a t-shirt emblazoned with Celine Dion’s face.  Apparently my imagination doesn’t work very well because a rather large segment of the population seems quite proud to wear just that.  These crazy crooks will be sentenced to evening and weekend fashion school, where they will learn among other things, that giant, sugary, alcoholic beverages in containers shaped like the Eiffel Tower aren’t making their Celine-stretching muffin tops any better.

4/7, 11 p.m., Super sleazy cocktail dresses, The Chandelier Bar, Cosmopolitan (This violation repeated every night at every bar)

I need to hire a new sergeant to head up an entire unit dedicated to cracking down on this violation.  In addition to issuing citations and making arrests for particularly heinous slutty dress crimes, we’ll implement a public education campaign – “Be sexy.  Leave something to the imagination.”  To say that the vast majority of women in Las Vegas were not leaving anything to the imagination would be a gross understatement.  Breasts appeared to be spring-loaded into dresses at least two sizes too small and ready to violently explode from them at any moment.  Butt-cheeks peeked out from underneath hemlines Daisy-Duke style, which is a questionable phenomenon even in the world of shorts, but dresses?  Come on.  The sleazy dress crime spree reached a fever-pitch on April 7 at The Chandelier, where I observed a dress riding up so high that at least the bottom third of the woman’s ass was hanging out, and slipping down so low that her areola were exposed.  I’m not even sure where these itty-bitty dresses are coming from.  Is there a Slutty Dress Barn chain that I’m not aware of or an insidious segment of the black market?  (“I’ll take one kidney, a third world child bride and two super slutty dresses.  A briefcase of unmarked bills will be dropped on the pedestrian bridge at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana.”)  Seriously, some of these women could have just put on pasties and a g-string and called it good.  Actually, I began to suspect that a good percentage of the slutty-dress wearers probably were off-duty strippers.  But even if you’re a stripper, you should only dress like one when you’re on the job.  The common sense rule is this: If you have to keep tugging it up or pulling it down, it doesn’t fit.  Please don’t wear it.  There, I asked nicely.  Next time I’ll haul your scantily-clad ass down to the station.

4/6, 9 p.m., Clothes clones, Bond, Cosmopolitan (This violation also repeated every night at every bar)

Clone clothing is a fashion crime wave of alarming proportions.  The perplexing propensity for adult women to dress like identical twins is sweeping the city.  Groups of female friends are showing up to bars, restaurants and clubs, dressed in identical outfits.  I encountered an example of this phenomenon up-close one evening at Bond.  A clothing clone gang sat together, wearing nearly identical tiny black strapless dresses, laughing at the equally tiny and equally identical dresses of other gangs with zero irony.  As if one ridiculously sleazy cocktail dress wasn’t disconcerting enough, now they are appearing in creepy masses à la Hitchcock’s Birds.  The laws are clear – dressing exactly like your friend or partner is only cute if you are an 80-year-old married couple or 8-year-old best-friends-forever.  

So there you have it, just a few examples of illegal fashion activities that are happening on a regular basis in Las Vegas.  While I observed many different fashion crimes during my undercover mission, my reaction was always the same.  I desperately wanted to pull the offenders aside and let them in on a little secret:  “Yes, people are staring at you, but it isn’t because you look good.”

I should note that I also observed some fantastic fashion on my trip to Las Vegas – gorgeous and inspiring clothes, styled and worn by people who both respect the classics and are savvy enough to push the envelope without breaking the law.  Based on my initial investigation, I’m undecided about whether to reassemble a Fashion Police team or just consider it “mission impossible.”  After all, Las Vegas is known for all kinds of shady behavior.  I suppose one shouldn’t expect fashion to be any different.  Let’s just hope the fashion that happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.

Very little good comes easy

I know the actual saying is “nothing good comes easy,” but I think it should be amended.  For one thing, despite the fact that I’m generally a cynical pessimist, I’m still a dreamer who holds out hope for all sorts of unlikely things.  Additionally, I have proof that at least once, something good came easy.

About twelve years ago, I fell in love with a suede jacket.  It caught my eye one day on a casual stroll through a shop.  It was a simple, classic cut in a gorgeous warm camel color and “buttery soft” does not begin to describe the texture.  I loved it so much that I tried it on, despite knowing what a huge mistake that would be.  I was right – it fit perfectly, which made me love it even more.  Sadly, by no stretch of my imagination or my wallet, could I afford a $350 jacket.  I was forced to leave the perfect jacket behind.  I returned to the store a few times over the next couple months, each time gazing longingly at the jacket while I purchased more practical and much less expensive items like work pants and blouses.  One day, I went to the store to return something.  My options were a cash refund or a store credit.  I decided to browse a bit to see if there was something else I wanted.  I was sure the perfect jacket was gone by that time, but I glimpsed a bit of camel color peeking out of the sale rack.  Sure enough, one perfect jacket remained and it was my size.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  I checked the price tag – 50% off!  The store was also having a 25% off sale that day, which meant the jacket was 75% off the original price.  AND, I had the store credit, which brought my out of pocket cost for the perfect jacket down to about $30.  More than a decade later, I still have the jacket.  I still wear it regularly and I still love it.  It’s the sort of classic “investment piece” I would have been happy to pay full price for, had I been able to afford it.  But I didn’t have to!  So there you have it – ONE example of something very good that came very easy.  Oh-so-good.  Oh-so-easy.

Why can’t more things in life be like the easily acquired perfect jacket?  The vast majority of the time, I find that very good things don’t come so easy.  In fact, most everything in life is much, much harder than I ever imagined it would be.  It isn’t like I’m opposed to hard work.  On the contrary, I think most people who know me well would say that I have an extremely strong work ethic.  And I certainly don’t want this to come across as whiny.  My thoughts here are not so much complaint as they are commentary on my profound naiveté.

Life is harder than I thought it would be, but it is also better than I thought it would be.  I have a wonderful life.  It has been constructed and is held together with a fair amount of luck, lots of support from family and friends, and a ton of on-going work on my part.  Marriage, home-ownership, financial stability, parenting, career – all harder than I thought they would be.  I’m not sure why I ever expected things to be easy.  Maybe it was the first few gold stars that appeared on the tops of my elementary school assignments that conditioned me.  I don’t remember having to work very hard for those and I think I got addicted to the shine of the star and the pat on the head that said “very good, Ronda, very good!” 

People are always talking about how hard marriage is.  “Marriage is the hardest thing you’ll ever do,” they say.  Well, I just celebrated my tenth wedding anniversary and I can report that they are both right and wrong.  Right that it is hard.  Wrong that it is the hardest.  Parenting is the hardest, hands down, but more on that later.  I recall hearing the “marriage is hard” speech, nodding, smiling and thinking, “Oh how sad!  Your relationship must not be as wonderful and magical as mine.”  (I told you I was naïve.)  Well, now I’m one of those people who have been married for a while and, like everyone else in that club, I know it can actually be pretty hard.  And not just in petty ways like “he drives me nuts because he mixes darks and lights in the laundry, and is apparently unable to put shoes away.”  This is a bit of a digression, but speaking of inability to put shoes away, I’m starting to just accept it as a male genetic deficiency.  I have a lovely coffee table in my living room that apparently sings out to be utilized as boy shoe storage.  I believe the coffee table is speaking in tones inaudible to the female ear because I do not hear it saying, “Please, please, put your shoes under me!” as other members of my family do.  The laundry room shoe rack remains sadly vacant while an array of boy shoes congregate under the coffee table.  It’s a good thing the shoes are so cute, gigantic and tiny, sitting side by side, otherwise I would be unable to resist the urge to bludgeon the wearers with their respective shoes.   

Owning a house is hard.  The whole white picket fence business is a bunch of crap.  In fact, I don’t even have a white picket fence because it would be too hard to maintain.  I do have a wooden fence around my backyard.  It’s falling apart because the previous owners of my house buried the base of the fence in the dirt, causing it to rot.  We have lived in the house for nearly a decade and despite concerted efforts, have not yet gotten around to fixing the fence.  We’ve been too busy refinishing the deck (which now needs to be done again), removing trees that were about to fall through the roof (which, by the way, desperately needs to be redone), painting the interior, attempting to refinish stairs and tending to the never-ending list of things that need replacing and fixing.  Owning a house requires time and money – preferably vast quantities of both – and I never have enough of either.   

Which leads me to financial stability – weren’t we all led to believe that if we applied ourselves and made smart financial decisions, we would live comfortable lives in relatively nice houses, with solid savings accounts, annual vacations, and at least a “toy” or two of our choosing?  While I’ll admit to dreaming of luxury, I never expected it.  I certainly wasn’t raised in a life of luxury – my family was solidly middle class and very frugal.  We took driving vacations, always staying at the Travel Lodge or Motel 6.  Our house was neat and tidy, but small and perpetually in some incomplete state.  I finally got a pair of $50 Guess jeans in high school, after extensive begging and pleading.  Come to think of it, premium denim is a perfect example of how much harder things have gotten financially.  Today, a good pair of jeans – 7 for All Mankind, Citizens of Humanity, J Brand, Paige – will easily run you $200.  That’s an increase of 300% for a nice pair of jeans over 20 years!  If salaries had increased at the same rate, a person who was making $40,000 a year in 1988 would be pulling down $160,000 today.  Now I realize premium denim is certainly not a necessity in life, but you’d think you could reward your hard work with a nice pair of jeans now and then without breaking the bank, and the more important point is a lot of other things have followed suit, causing many double-income, hard-working families to feel like they are perpetually falling short.

Of all life’s difficult adventures, parenting definitely tops the list as the most challenging.  I sort of knew it would be physically exhausting – even though you can never really know what the extreme sleep deprivation of having a newborn is like until you go through it, particularly when that sleep deprivation continues well beyond the “newborn” months.  I also expected that parenting would try what little patience I have on a regular basis, and it does.  What I was completely unprepared for is how emotionally overwhelming it is to be a parent.  I had no idea how hard it would be to love something so much and be completely responsible for its well-being.  To be overcome with love, terror, joy, devotion and panic all at the same time has a way of rending your heart like nothing else.  I recall one particularly hard day during my maternity leave when my son hadn’t slept for more than a half-hour stretch in days and cried inconsolably for hours upon hours.  At my wit’s end, I called my friend Amy, who, having a daughter exactly a year older than my son, was an absolute parenting guru in my mind.  Tears streamed down my exhausted and frustrated face as I said, “I just don’t think I can DO this!”  The wise-beyond-her-single-year-of-parenting-Amy said, “I know how you feel, but guess what I realized when I felt that way?”  There was a long silence during which I desperately hoped she would give me the secret to making it less hard.  Instead, this is what she said: “I realized it didn’t really matter if I thought I could do it or not.  I WOULD do it because I HAD to do it.  I mean, what choice do you have?”  So, the profound realization was, yeah, it’s harder than you ever imagined and you’re going to rise to the challenge because there simply isn’t an easy option.   

My work life is also harder than I thought it would be.  I’ve always been very career-oriented and I wouldn’t change that for the world even if I could.  But being ambitious and caring about doing good work can be a real grind, especially for a gal who got so hooked on those gold stars early on.  So often, skepticism and criticism come much more regularly and swiftly than recognition and praise.  As a very wise man (wise despite his inability to put shoes away) gently reminds me, “The world is not going to stand up and clap.”  Well, why not?!?  Who couldn’t use some enthusiastic and regular applause?  I certainly could.  I would very much like the world to stand up and clap for me.  I once saw a video on YouTube of a flash mob that was set up to promote recycling.  It took place in the very busy food court of a crowded mall.  An empty plastic bottle was placed on the ground, right next to a recycling bin.  The video captured person after person walking by, noticing the bottle and doing nothing.  Finally, a woman picked the bottle up and threw it in the container.  The entire place was in on the plan and hundreds of people exploded in a standing ovation for her that went on and on and on.  If only getting the world to stand up and clap for a job well done was as easy as putting a plastic bottle in the appropriate recycling receptacle.  

Generally, I’m a big believer in the “nothing (or very little) good comes easy” philosophy.  I don’t mind working hard and I believe that you typically get out of something what you put into it.  I know I’m going to have to keep working like crazy, and even still, the world isn’t going to stand up and clap.  But, you can be sure that while I’m slaving away, I’ll be looking for more of those oh-so-good and oh-so-easy perfect suede jacket moments.  There have GOT to be more of them out there . . . don’t there?  Come on, lie to me.