Shopping bag reusability hierarchy

Reduce, re-use, and recycle. But watch out when it comes to reusing shopping bags to carry your pumps while you commute to work in your New Balance sneakers. It’s important to coordinate. Not every bag goes well with your North Face jacket. Here are a few different sorts of bags, listed from lowest to highest level of yuppie acceptability:

Wal-Mart: Never acceptable. Why were you shopping at Wal-Mart to begin with? Why were you even in that part of town? I would put Sears in this category as well, if only because their bags are butt-ugly. Black bags from the liquor store and take-out bags with smiley faces should also never be reused.

Jewel/other thin grocery style bag: Only as a last resort. Trashy, and shows you don’t give a shit about the environment, because you clearly forgot your canvas bags at home last shopping trip.

Aldi: Still pretty trashy, but not as much, ’cause these are thick and durable. Shows that you’re cheap, since you shop at Aldi, but that’s kinda in fashion, so it’s passable.

Target: Your bag must at least meet the Target standard in in order to avoid cut eye.

Mall store: The more expensive the store, the more reusable the bag, except that paper beats plastic almost every time (fancy plastic shit like you’d get at Urban Outfitters can occasionally beat paper).

Major department store: Unless it’s from Macy’s, you’re all good. If it’s from Macy’s, you will lose points from the sort of dipshits that whine about the loss of Marshall Field’s, so carry with caution.

Trader Joe’s/Whole Foods: Hipster status symbol. Most rush-hour commuters will approve muchly. You may not care about the environment, but you care about looking like you do, and that’s good enough for credit.

Designer boutique: Clearly, you have a lot of money. Use this bag until it falls apart.

How not to wear a belt



Fashion Pony, originally uploaded by www.DaveWard.net.

Dude tried to centre the buckle over his fly, which is wrong to begin with. And then he missed.

I will laugh at you if you do this, because it makes you look like an asshat. It puts your entire outfit off-kilter, even if someone doesn’t necessarily notice exactly why.

Especially if you don’t match your belt and shoes.

Whatever.

In searching for photos to explain this complaint, every single person that I found doing things the stupid way was male. Why is that, I wonder. Pay attention, ya doofs!

Sometimes I wonder if I pay too much attention to relatively-pointless details. But then I figure, I don’t really have anything major to complain about, so I’d probably be pretty out of luck for a hobby. Plus, menfolk. The womens, they will notice these things. You will lose points.

Now… out into the city, to inaudibly click my tongue and invisibly shake my head at people on the train.

How to wear a belt



Brown Belt & Blue Jeans, originally uploaded by RicoFit.

(The sort with a conventional buckle, anyway).

The buckle should not be in the centre.

Not.

In.

The.

Centre.

It belt should be placed (more or less) so that the midpoint between the loop and the exposed half of the buckle lines up with the button on your fly. The photo above shows correct placement.

And since Flickr is an asshole, and doesn’t easily allow me to blog more than one photo at a time, hang on a second…

Flip-flops are never acceptable footwear.

Unless you’re at a gym, a pool, a spa, or maybe the beach. Tacky, tacky, tacky, tacky. Tacky. When they’re nice enough looking that they could be called “thong sandals”, I’m willing to let it slip, especially if they’ve got heels (I own a pair or two). But otherwise, quit it. And walking with someone whose feet keep going “smack smack smack smack smack” is definitely high up on my list of things that I could do without. Also, say hello to:

  • Sore arches and heels, which can progress to chronic conditions, including inflamed Achilles tendons and plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the connective tissue between the heel bone and the toes.
  • Heel calluses (from the pounding).
  • Hammer toes (from the gripping).
  • Irritation between the toes (from the toe thongs), which can lead to nasty fungal infections.

(From Trouble afoot with flip-flops – USATODAY.com)

(Sorry, I was just outside, and saw one too many pairs of ugly-ass feet with fallen arches and ragged toenails. At least remove your chipped nail polish?)

Wearing a handbag?

This sounds ridiculous. I don’t care how much your boring leather handbag cost (though, if you’re the type that goes around “wearing” yours, it was probably more than my last car — which is pretty silly, because your bag is boring and probably brown but definitely not special enough looking to justify the price, especially considering it was probably also sewn by children in a country you can’t find on a map, you twit). I will be forced to hurt you (emotionally by e-mail — I’m a recluse) if you don’t stop using this phrase. Well, at least… I’ll sit on my ass in front of the TV and hope as hard as I can that you get mugged.

$200? How about… no. I own pliers!

The jewelry on this site gives me a lot of good ideas, but unfortunately, I no longer live down the road from an electronics surplus store! I’ve been meaning to buy some parts in bulk from eBay for a while, but I’m pretty (excessively) broke. I like this diode choker. $195! I have all of the parts for that at home. I don’t think the total cost could have been more than a few dollars, and it probably wouldn’t take me longer than half an hour to make. Max. Maybe I should go into business :-p