Get Over Your Gosselin Hair

There was an incident this morning which reminded me that I am not the only one feeling undone by life and other people's reactions to it.

For example, the other Vivian had just posted a note to her Facebook condemning posers with Gosselin hair who have no real credentials to back up their snobbishness. Or snobbery, whatever. She and I have embarked upon a "fitness program" involving break-of-dawn cardio walks around her semi-upscale development.

Having harshly criticized "posers" on her Facebook page, we left the house this morning for our cardio walk. Whereupon we discovered that, in anticipation of an overnight rainstorm, he who must be obeyed had covered his convertible with the tarp from their Seadoo. And he had fastened this tarp to the car in a very redneck way, with some sort of bungee cords, which greatly embarrassed La Vivian. (I am the humble one. Jussayin.)

It looked odd, but was no skin off my nose, so we stretched and I told her to get over it. Vivi said, "I cannot simply get over it. It looks janky." She was grouchy at me all two miles of speed walking, due to my failure to empathize with he who's jankiness.

My point was that she had condemned--in a very public way--superficial people who do not, in actual fact, belong to the Junior League, nor are they actual card-carrying members of DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). And yet she felt the right to be all lofty about a car wrapped securely in a boat tarp. What's the big deal?

We cardio-trudged for four blocks in silence, hostility radiating from her body, until at last she said, "The tarp says Seadoo on it."

I gave her a shrug and palms up. (Words were not an option at that point; this was serious exercise.)

Vivian's eyes filled with tears as she reminded me, and the solitary neighbor woman pruning some butterfly bushes, that her family's Seadoo is an actual "multi-passenger-bearing watercraft, and not a motorcycle thing on floats."

Bottom line: we each have showdog hair, in some area of our lives. Either own it and represent in a genuine way, or shave your head. (Your own personal Yoda.)

Respectfully submitted,
Vivian Carter