A Yuppie Rant

For the few of you that don't know, I live in Yuppie land. And I don't like it. Ok, I take that back. 51% of the time I like it, 49% of the time I loathe it. I also think that the 51% is cushioned because this is the town that I was raised in. I've moved one time in my entire life, and that was 9/10 of a mile. Over the past 21 years I have seen this yuppie town go from a tiny place with lots of corn fields to at city full of yuppies. And that's what it's known for too.

High School and especially Jr. High here was hell. I'm sorry my Mommy and Daddy didn't give me a Jaguar to drive to school and Mommy and Daddy don't take me shopping at Abercrombie every weekend. I'm also sorry that my backyard isn't the 9th green of some country club and that my house only cost $140,000 and that we did the fixing up ourselves when we moved in. Guess what? I also do my own laundry, do the dishes and even know how to use a vacuum cleaner! And my parents didn't dump me off at a day care, they sat me down and taught me how to read instead of letting the newest gadget do it for them. I also have a job, mommy and daddy don't give me a $100 a week allowance for sitting on my ass.

Oh, and believe it or not, my tuition for BG comes out of my own pocket. Rent for my apartment, also my own pocket. And ya know what? I'll appreciate my education more because I paid for it. If i fail a class, i wasted my own money, not Mommy and Daddy's.

Yeah, my car, it's not the coolest. I know a '94 Escort station wagon isn't the most pimp ride on the block, but my parents gave it to me, and it's something they didn't have to do. I appreciate that, and I also appreciate that my parents pay for my insurance and gas. They most definitely didn't have to do that. None of that is stuff that I expect my parents to do, like most of the kids in this town. Parents will buy their kids a new BMW for their 16th birthday. The kid wrecks it and what do they do? Buy the kid a new one. I know that if i wreck my car, the next one comes out of my pocket.

Sadly enough, the city itself has a definite class system. People here classify you by what neighborhood you live in. If you live in Royal Oaks, your trailer trash, but if you live in Settler's Walk, the people in Royal Oaks should kiss your feet. Seriously, each neighborhood is even divided into price ranges. Take Settler's Walk for example. There is one main drive, and little sections branching off of it. Each section has a name, starting with the million dollar homes in the front, and the further back off the main drag, are the $150,000 condos and town homes. Oh, and patio homes start at $200,000. Settler's Walk is also starting its own yuppie shopping plaza anchored by a Dorothy Lane Market and a gas station with a lounge area. WTF?!?!?

Settler's Walk isn't the only neighborhood like that, there are at least 5 others I'm thinking of. What roasted my butt is that I don't know who would want to live like in a neighborhood like that. All the houses look the same and the houses are so close together you could shake hands with your neighbor out your bedroom window. They all have Homeowner's Associations that you have to pay like $200 a month to belong to. Then they make all these stupid rules like not being allowed to have a clothesline, they'll call the cops on you if you leave your garage door open all day, not sheds in the backyard and you can't put up a fence. I say, if it's my house, I'll do as I damn well please. All these rules are made up because having a clothesline and leaving your garage door open "looks trashy." On top of that, I wouldn't want to live in a house that's like a museum. I want to be able to actually live in my house.

I think that's enough for now. Being left up on the platform at work by myself allows me to thinka ponder, and get pissy about things like this.