Where’s the beef?
August 22, 2004 | 12:00am
When was the last time you had a cow? We go to therapy to abort our demons. Bleach our teeth to look trustworthy. Wear pastels to look approachable. And yet no one is free from the shuddering delights of having a delilah moment when the chic hits the fan.
We all have that inner diva. That Joan Collins in us that turns into Linda Blair when the right buttons are pushed. It never is a pretty sight even if you are having a fit in your best outfit. Sometimes it can only be as trite and stupid as being given the wrong order in a restaurant. A customer service representative who puts you on hold for half-an-hour then kills you off (not to mention the horrendous hold music drying your eardrum into potpourri). Airlines that cancel your flight without prior notice.
Customer service representatives often say, "Oh I’m sorry you may now wait in our lounge equipped with Eames plastic torture device for chairs." Whatever it is the imaginative spawns of Delilah are everywhere, and they often get you without a squeeze ball or massage chair in sight.
A friend who is normally calm and collected once told me she truly lost it in a hair salon when they blow dried her hair and shaped it like a summer wicker basket. Although I would have paid good money to see the hair, I would have traded my first-born to see her wig out and scream to the ambivalent stylist, "This hair does not exist!"
What gets me:
1) Blank stares that follow my questions.
2) Doctor’s receptionists who do their nails while I ask for my results (She mumbles, "You’re gonna die!" while she blows her nails dry.)
3) "We will get back to yous" and then they never get back to me.
4) Assholes who only respond when I lose it and then ask me to cool down.
5) Assholes.
6) People who eat in restos and take their shoes off under the table (allowed only when playing footsie – and OK it’s not really that bad, just felt like saying it cause it’s just so die!).
7)Paranoid boyfriends (When will they ever realize that this is not a democracy? I’m the only one allowed to be paranoid!)
8) Paranoid parents (Look Ma, I’m still breathing! No hands! No hands!)
9) Ten pounds gained in one week.
10) Apathy.
So when a wig out session occurs what is one to do?
Well, like in everything in our artless times there is an art in going D ( short for delilah). How you have your cow says a lot about you.
Having it rare is bad. It’s usually a vodka-induced affair that consists of a lot of leg thumping, shoulder throwing and word mumbling like an angry Cocteau Twin. Incoherent when reasoning and only clear when you state your impossible demands (such as "I want you to love me again NOW!" to ambivalent ex-boyfriend). It’s usually not honored nor acknowledged and usually you end up waking up in a sidewalk with puke as your only companion – if you’re lucky.
Having it medium rare is usually done when sober but not lucid. You suddenly doubt your own cache and blame the transgression committed on your lack of star factor. So you name drop. A friend of mine who owns a club once told me some kid once went ballistic when he was denied entrance. He then glared at the receptionist and said, "Don’t forget this, I know Mark Anthony Fernandez." This was last year.
It becomes more pathetic if you are super close to a name dropee. If it’s a parent it signals that you are a loser spawn of a hot family and are nothing without a last name. If it’s a close friend you are an invisible sycophant (i.e. loser groupie) or simply a liar.
If you are fight, no saliva should be expended and the only name you call out is the bouncer’s name.
Medium well is a dramedy of sorts. You channel your inner Flor de Luna and beg and whimper for sympathy. Offers for a blow job in exchange for solution is not of this category. For example, you really need to go to the bathroom and you are about to lose it because some tramp in the cubicle is taking one million minutes to insert a tampon. Again uttering, "Will you please hurry up, my dad died when I was five and my mom married his best friend who left her for her sister" is not useful in this situation. Using pity as your power is tricky. Because really, people don’t care. They just want you to shut up.
Well done is to elicit fear manipulatively. No names are dropped, no pity parties and definitely no vodka and co. I learned this while complaining once in a resort for being put in a room next to hard-core hammering from a construction job on a Saturday. I asked nicely for the situation to be amended. Reply was nada. I called again slightly cross and insisted that I not suffer for their lack of foresight. They said that I will be moved rooms with a fake sorry to conclude the affair. (Wig out, wig out) I started spitting out irrational comments. I can only imagine this is what rabid dogs feel just before their heads are cut off. Usually what sets us off are the stoic reactions (from people who really don’t care, promise) that greet our heated complaints. Isn’t the meeting of hot and cold air the way thunder is made? I was given a prize alright – a downgrade from my original room at the South Pole of the resort. I realized if I was going to be a bitch, I shouldn’t be the rabid bitch. So I kept my temper in the safety deposit box and bit on a rag as I stated my sorry little trivial problem channeling Sharon Stone. I was already ready to divorce from myself but I had to stand-by by my evil twin nonetheless. I spoke to the manager who let me stay in downgraded room for free. I won’t complain at all.
Lesson learned: Well done is all about speaking to top dogs with a movie star voice (complete with script by someone witty and demanding like Stephen Fry).
Results: guaranteed.
We all have that inner diva. That Joan Collins in us that turns into Linda Blair when the right buttons are pushed. It never is a pretty sight even if you are having a fit in your best outfit. Sometimes it can only be as trite and stupid as being given the wrong order in a restaurant. A customer service representative who puts you on hold for half-an-hour then kills you off (not to mention the horrendous hold music drying your eardrum into potpourri). Airlines that cancel your flight without prior notice.
Customer service representatives often say, "Oh I’m sorry you may now wait in our lounge equipped with Eames plastic torture device for chairs." Whatever it is the imaginative spawns of Delilah are everywhere, and they often get you without a squeeze ball or massage chair in sight.
A friend who is normally calm and collected once told me she truly lost it in a hair salon when they blow dried her hair and shaped it like a summer wicker basket. Although I would have paid good money to see the hair, I would have traded my first-born to see her wig out and scream to the ambivalent stylist, "This hair does not exist!"
What gets me:
1) Blank stares that follow my questions.
2) Doctor’s receptionists who do their nails while I ask for my results (She mumbles, "You’re gonna die!" while she blows her nails dry.)
3) "We will get back to yous" and then they never get back to me.
4) Assholes who only respond when I lose it and then ask me to cool down.
5) Assholes.
6) People who eat in restos and take their shoes off under the table (allowed only when playing footsie – and OK it’s not really that bad, just felt like saying it cause it’s just so die!).
7)Paranoid boyfriends (When will they ever realize that this is not a democracy? I’m the only one allowed to be paranoid!)
8) Paranoid parents (Look Ma, I’m still breathing! No hands! No hands!)
9) Ten pounds gained in one week.
10) Apathy.
So when a wig out session occurs what is one to do?
Well, like in everything in our artless times there is an art in going D ( short for delilah). How you have your cow says a lot about you.
Having it rare is bad. It’s usually a vodka-induced affair that consists of a lot of leg thumping, shoulder throwing and word mumbling like an angry Cocteau Twin. Incoherent when reasoning and only clear when you state your impossible demands (such as "I want you to love me again NOW!" to ambivalent ex-boyfriend). It’s usually not honored nor acknowledged and usually you end up waking up in a sidewalk with puke as your only companion – if you’re lucky.
Having it medium rare is usually done when sober but not lucid. You suddenly doubt your own cache and blame the transgression committed on your lack of star factor. So you name drop. A friend of mine who owns a club once told me some kid once went ballistic when he was denied entrance. He then glared at the receptionist and said, "Don’t forget this, I know Mark Anthony Fernandez." This was last year.
It becomes more pathetic if you are super close to a name dropee. If it’s a parent it signals that you are a loser spawn of a hot family and are nothing without a last name. If it’s a close friend you are an invisible sycophant (i.e. loser groupie) or simply a liar.
If you are fight, no saliva should be expended and the only name you call out is the bouncer’s name.
Medium well is a dramedy of sorts. You channel your inner Flor de Luna and beg and whimper for sympathy. Offers for a blow job in exchange for solution is not of this category. For example, you really need to go to the bathroom and you are about to lose it because some tramp in the cubicle is taking one million minutes to insert a tampon. Again uttering, "Will you please hurry up, my dad died when I was five and my mom married his best friend who left her for her sister" is not useful in this situation. Using pity as your power is tricky. Because really, people don’t care. They just want you to shut up.
Well done is to elicit fear manipulatively. No names are dropped, no pity parties and definitely no vodka and co. I learned this while complaining once in a resort for being put in a room next to hard-core hammering from a construction job on a Saturday. I asked nicely for the situation to be amended. Reply was nada. I called again slightly cross and insisted that I not suffer for their lack of foresight. They said that I will be moved rooms with a fake sorry to conclude the affair. (Wig out, wig out) I started spitting out irrational comments. I can only imagine this is what rabid dogs feel just before their heads are cut off. Usually what sets us off are the stoic reactions (from people who really don’t care, promise) that greet our heated complaints. Isn’t the meeting of hot and cold air the way thunder is made? I was given a prize alright – a downgrade from my original room at the South Pole of the resort. I realized if I was going to be a bitch, I shouldn’t be the rabid bitch. So I kept my temper in the safety deposit box and bit on a rag as I stated my sorry little trivial problem channeling Sharon Stone. I was already ready to divorce from myself but I had to stand-by by my evil twin nonetheless. I spoke to the manager who let me stay in downgraded room for free. I won’t complain at all.
Lesson learned: Well done is all about speaking to top dogs with a movie star voice (complete with script by someone witty and demanding like Stephen Fry).
Results: guaranteed.
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