Lighten Up --- Erlaichda!

Okay, way too rabid lately. Let's enjoy Erlaichda.* (Latin for Lighten Up). (*Erlaichda -- Tom Robbins - Jitterbug Perfurme).

Let's pick a subject that's just plain funny, like the size and cost of designer handbags. I confess a certain prediliction for looking at glossy pictures of celebrity actresses on-line. I love "People" and "E-OnLine". It's true, movie stars are America's royalty and we all like to peep into the lifestyles of the rich, pretentious and surgically engineered beautiful people.

So, I'm doing my morning perusal of the beautiful people, and I can't help but notice the size of their handbags. The sticks with silicone breasts known as starlets could easily fit themselves into one of these things and spend the night there. Maybe that's why they have them......Papparazzi --- quick ---- get into the purse and hide. Anyhow, they are somewhat comical. There is nothing sillier than a 98 pound actress (6 lbs. being hair) toting around a tent sized handbag half her weight.

I get the New York Times every Sunday and laugh my butt off at the ads for these things. Is there any reason in the world that someone needs a crocodile tent bag/purse three feet wide and two feet high for $4,500? Symptomatic of too much money concentrated in the hands of too few people, with too little self esteem to feel worthwhile unless they're holding onto something ridiculously overpriced. It's the "stuff" pitfall. If you have the right "stuff" at the right "price", i.e., cost equals feeding a family of four in an African nation for two years", then you are somehow "Okay". My wish for these people is that in the eternity they are designing for themselves after this life is over, they have to actually carry a live alligator and put all their stuff in it. Forever and ever. Let's see you fish out your $129 lipstick from that.

Guess what. You're not "okay". You're basically out of your mind. That doesn't mean designers won't stop designing them, merchandisers won't stop selling them, or the world's pretentious won't stop buying them. But that lady on the bus who called me and my friends "bitches" isn't the only one with a mental illness. There is a new form of mental illness I am going to call Status Illness. All rich people suffer this......Hurray! It's so fun to watch rich people suffer from something....anything! It's a pretty horrible illness, though. I mean, you only have it if you can feel superior to honest people who are happy to have a roof over their heads and food in their mouths. Aren't YOU special!

Alas, the current status illnesses don't have designer labels yet. Let's invent one. For all the people out there with $4,500 crocodile handbags, you're suffering from Humongo-baguglisima. This illness is characterized by the need to carry something completely out of proportion and unnecessarily ugly that comes with an astronomical price tag Congratulations, you have arrived. You have a status illness and a fuckin' ugly purse.

I love shoes, too! I have lots of shoes. I wish I could still wear high heels, but years of wearing them have ruined my once very sexy and now very painful feet. Again, I refer to the New York Times and an ad for a designer shoe that costs over $1,000. What a croc --- no pun intended. The shoes are wonderful, but no shoe is worth $1,000. Period. For all people who spend outrageous amounts of money on a pair of shoes, I dub the following Status Illness yours and yours alone "Stiltochooloublanitis". Ouch. It even sounds painful.....and trust me, it will be. I yearn for the days of P.F. Flyers, in three colors. I fondly possess six pairs of Birkenstocks and wear them proudly and comfortably. I will never suffer from Stiltochooloublanitis. I am special! And you, with your 500 pairs of $500 shoes, may you come back according to the laws of Reincarnation as an ugly, hairy, spotted centipede with good reason to have so many shoes!