I admit I’m no authority on fashion or cosmetic maintenance, and I don’t mean to sound catty, but this girl’s look is so extremely bad that it makes me think that it’s intentional, like she might be punishing herself for something. It should be noted that the cobalt blue uniform smocks worn by Osco employees are among the fugliest and most unflattering garments known to man, but there are ways to make apparent your personality through hair styling, accessories, and the like.

The woman in question has made some abominable choices. Black, high-waisted, tapered jeans. Old-skool turtleneck jerseys. Hair all cinched back and bouffantified by a plastic headband. And her glasses, which are about the size of manhole covers, are a spectacular (PUNNY!) Sally J. Raphael nightmare of face-obscuring bottle caps with pink-tinted plastic frames. I’m not trying to be mean, but these glasses are so terrible that they’re almost awesome. I don’t even know where Osco girl could have gotten them these days, unless she kept them as a trophy after winning a death match with Sophia from the Golden Girls.

Let me see if I can … Okay, look:

If the frames were pink, those would be the glasses. I should mention that the girl is my age, or maybe a little younger. I’m honestly amazed the lengths to which she has gone to detract attention from her natural beauty.

Because, that’s the thing. Look behind those hideous glasses, and you’ll see that the girl is completely stunning.

You know those weird backlash Ugly Duckling movies wherein the woman gets all “hott” or whatever so that she can better fit into a social pecking order, and everything’s great until something gets fucked up and she realizes, tra la, that she was always the same beautiful person inside? The ones about the nerd who, on a cruel dare, is taken to the prom by the a popular football stud, and there’s just “something about her” that makes him fall in love with her, and she gets a gigantic makeover which reveals the beautiful goddess beneath the frump, and she wins homecoming queen?

Those movies always make me uneasy (except for the AWESOME “Carrie,” in which we learned that pigblood + telekinesis + a groovy sense of vengeance = quite the memorable prom), but regardless of my personal feelings about them, the Osco girl would be a perfect candidate to star in such a Cinderella story.

If I were the type of person presumptuous enough to invent a back-story for her, Osco girl would be a home-schooled Jehovah’s Witness caring for her sick grandparents, and she would be informally betrothed to a boy in the neighborhood studying for his degree in Accounting. (He’d be nice enough, but he’d never rev her engines, and she’d never tell him how badly she wants to live by the ocean.) And, by the way, her fairy godmother would be Tyra Banks. Just so’s we’re all watching the same movie. Hypothetically.

My Jehovah’s Princess is tall and skinny in a way that would be envied by most runway models, and she probably has those knobby shoulders off which stupid slip dresses hang gorgeously. But, her posture is horrible, making her almost concave. She stands like she’s always on the defense, as if by slumping her shoulders, looking down, and moving her arms like her hands are steam shovels, she’ll become invisible, and safe from some of her more terrifying homegirl coworkers.

Her skin isn’t perfect, but it’s a beautiful shade of rose and vanilla. Her eyes, aside from the fact that they’re magnified manifold times by the amazing hubcap spectacles that time forgot, are big and blue, and fringed with dark lashes that are both long and curly, and bow under their own weight. Her hair is dark and incredibly thick, and would probably be beautiful if she didn’t torment it with old school boar bristle hairbrushes, like she appears to do. Her voice is mousy and joyless, and, though I’ve tried like hell to make her smile, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do so. However, this only accentuates the incredible perfection of her pout. It’s bizarre. And let’s not even talk about the girl’s fascinating nose and crazy Linda Evangelista bone structure.

I’m not, like, lusting after the Osco girl. It’s just incredible to me that someone can be that beautiful, and be so totally unaware of it as to outright sabotage her own appeal. Must be the result of some hardcore conditioning on the part of her bedridden, Bible-crazed granny, who I imagine terrorizes our Princess by dousing her with holy water and telling her the only way to be purify herself of the scourge of Eve is to hide her “dirty pillows.”

But I say, FUCK GRANNY, JW PRINCESS! FLAUNT THEM DIRTY PILLOWS!

(Sometimes after I write really absurd sentences like that last one, I sit back and realize I live a life most blessed.)

Hey, so hey. Hey. If you’re a dashing young man in the Chicago area, email me and I’ll tell you where to find my neighborhood Osco. Then go in there, find the Princess, and flirt with her a little. Just to give her a lift. Tell her she’s pretty. Of course, she might be a lesbian, but in that case, I’m sure she just hasn’t found the right guy! So, go on in and bat them baby blues, white knight. Penis is always the answer.

HA! Hey, white knight with the baby blues! Like how I just made you totally Aryan? In my head, you’re, like, a vigilante anti-homo Viking crusader who will save our heroine from rug munching, poor fashion choices, and the witnessing of Jehovah.*

So, Prince Charming, go in and buy some Imodium or something, hit on the little lady, and make her day. If you don’t, and Jehovah’s Princess goes apeshit, raining my neighborhood Osco in pig blood before locking the place and blowing it up with everyone inside in an AWESOME conflagration, it will be on your conscience, much like the length of this horrible sentence is on mine.

Ooh, them religious girls. They keep it all pent up, but if you press ‘em just right, they explode like a gymnasium on prom night.

I’m so sorry.

Sometime recently, I boarded the train and made eye contact with a handsome man who was talking on his cell phone. I sat down and looked out the window, unaware of whether or not he was still looking at me. Then, in my peripheral vision, I saw the gleam of two white orbs. I turned to look at the guy, and he was STARING at me. His eyes were bugging out of his head like ping pong balls, his arm was slightly raised as if fending off a dog attack, and he was recoiling as far into the wall of the train as he could. His breath had shortened into sharp, shallow, “there-is-no-Dana-only-Zuul” barks, and I think I mentioned, he was staring at me.

A couple of seconds after I looked back at him, he FREAKED OUT. He leapt out of his seat, screaming “AH! AH! AH! AH!” in terror, and landed on his back in the aisle right by where I was seated. He stayed there, eyes still bulging with freak-out, put up his arms and legs in a defensive mode, and twitched like an epileptic tarantula.

I invoke demons without even trying! I should teach a seminar.

No, but luckily, this all happened exactly the same time that my train arrived at my intended location. I climbed over the seat in front of me so as to avoid stepping on the poor twitching crazy dude, and disembarked. Another passenger and I ran up to the driver to tell him there was someone in need of medical attention, the driver made an announcement, the train was stalled, and I left to go to a birthday party. I hope the guy’s okay.

Something else that bothers me is that I have no idea what happened to his cell phone. I don’t remember seeing him put it away, and I don’t remember seeing him drop or throw it, and it’s bugging the hell out of me.

I mean, yeah, I’m concerned about the guy, too … but the missing cell phone is, like, just the kind of blip in continuity that will divert my attention from main themes and make me obsess about stupid shit. Like, when I’m watching a movie, and a character opens the door to enter a scene, but after he/she enters the door is no longer in the frame, I’ll watch the rest of the scene wondering desperately whether or not someone closed the door. I’m just trying to be practical. A character can’t be expected to deliver a stirring monologue when there’s a draft.

In the case of the crazy dude, I’m mostly just concerned that he might not be in the financial position to afford both antipsychotic medication, and a new cell phone. I’m not making fun. I don’t mock the mentally ill. Only Jehovah’s Witnesses.

* I don’t know much about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, other than that they’re, like, the poor man’s Mormons.

So, just to make sure I wasn’t being a bigoted shithead when making fun of them, I did a little research and found their website. HOLY SHIT, was that a good idea! Funniest fucking site I’ve seen in my whole damned life, and I don’t think I’ll be able to leave it alone. In fact, it’s inspiring me to create a scathing multi-media opus. Stay tuned.

I think this here’s my favorite:

Underneath that picture is the caption,

Cut off? God is going to cut us off? Does this mean we won’t get our trust funds?

And look at the faces of the saved! The damned are incinerating behind them, and they’re all, “You just WISH you was righteous and submissive, suckaaaaaz.”

I’m getting a big kick out of the image of God as a carrot-dangling dominatrix.

I could go on and on. Maybe later.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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