A woman doing math? Burn her! She’s a witch!

the limit does not exist!

Despite my ardent disbelief in germs, they’ve proven their very real existence to me once again. Being sick gives you a chance to slow down and regroup before the torrent of the unfortunate ‘real world’ sweeps you back up again. I’m using this time most productively to focus on breathing without coughing, catching up on Mad Men, and reading the news. As I grow weary of watching Don Draper bang yet another blonde, I switch back to CNN.  I’ve given up on MSNBC after one too many Middle East inaccuracies and you can’t honestly expect me to watch Fox News. So, I stick with CNN because Anderson Cooper makes me swoon.

Like many of us, I’ve been following the Occupy Wall Street protests with some keen interest and with the proverbial grain of salt. While I too don’t like how greedy some of the big businesses are, I also don’t like how a bunch of people can protest without a unified message. Now, I’m not the most logical person in the world, but I try to at least know what I’m talking about. I mean, let’s face it—I’m a moron who hates whales and vests, but at least I back my shit up. I don’t teeter with my message but come at it with a force stronger than a Republican veto for helping the homeless.

Anyways, I’m baffled by which percentage I supposedly belong to. I’ve seen those pictures of people holding up handwritten signs declaring their allegiance to the other 99%, the 1%, the 53%, the 2% (if you’re a dairy product), the 6% (if you’re a decent beer), among others. Now, I’ve been terrible with math ever since I learned you can’t divide by zero. That just doesn’t make sense to me. In my mind, if you divide by zero, it’s the same thing as dividing by one. If 40 cookies are divided for one person, then 1 person gets forty cookies. If 40 cookies go to zero people, then the 40 cookies still exist. Nobody gets to eat them. Math makes me sad.

I feel like we’ve been categorized as percentages our whole lives. Just think about it. I remember doctors telling me I was in the 5^th percentile for my height and weight, for my age. As in, 95% of the population for my age was taller and heavier than me. Statistics just make you feel diminutive. Now, maybe I’m just unlucky, but statistics have only made me feel worse about myself. You never feel worse about yourself than you do when you’re applying for college. I have to be top 15% of my class? I had to get ‘this’ percentile on my SAT scores? Whatever, I somehow managed to get into University of Maryland, earn my BA, and land a job. And with this, comes scrutiny. Now I need to ally myself with the percent again.

I’m charged by social change. I love that our country allows for protests of government and other displays of inequalities. Yet, this Occupy Wall Street is baffling to me because I’m not sure where I lie. I don’t have a job in the financial sector, and definitely don’t make enough money to be in that elusive 1%. Yet, is it wrong for me to aspire to that? I’ve dabbled with thoughts of Communism and Socialism and see their respective draws (plus, in Soviet Russia jokes are hysterical). Still, the major flaw with these forms of government is their lack of competition. If we’re all supposed to be equal, then what’s the push to move forward? I’m not saying I don’t view each person as valuable to this planet (Boston Red Sox excluded), but don’t people need drive?

I’m ticked off that oil companies get richer and small business close. I do believe in higher taxes for those making more money, just as I fully expect to pay a shit ton of taxes when my novel takes off. But that’s just the rent we pay to live in this great country. I don’t view the drive to succeed as a bad thing. I feel as though this Occupy Wall Street movement is punishing those who want more. Is it greedy if I’ve earned it?

I don’t fully understand their message (I’m sure most of them don’t either), but it’s not realistic. We all want change, and I agree the economy is rough. Jobs are scarce and I have countless friends who are eagerly looking. I can blame a lot of people for the economic mess we’re in, but I’m not going to waste my time. I’d rather just be good at my job than sleep outside for weeks carrying a sign for a movement that promises zero job security. When it comes down to it, you do what you have to do to pay the mortgage. I took that from Thank You for Smoking. Maybe it’s time people took their own initiative and stopped playing the devil’s game of mathematics. Just do your shit. It’s not like we use math in the real world, anyways. 

Better to close your mouth and be thought an idiot than to open your mouth and be proven one

I love doing laundry. Seriously, it’s my favorite chore. The intoxicating scent of fabric softener and detergent. The nice, warm, cozy feeling of clean pajama pants. I’m so turned off by dirty laundry that I will suggest other places to hook up with boys if I suspect their bed is a little ripe. Needless to say, I despise ironing. I know the two tasks should go hand in hand, but they don’t. Ironing is like the red-headed step child of chores. I always create more wrinkles than I set out with, and I just lose patience. Then I burn myself, incidentally inhale an excess of starch, and never fold the ironing board up the right way. It ends with me kicking the frame and drinking a beer.  I avoid buying clothes that require ironing, and end up saving money with my practicality (or maybe it’s because I buy everything a thousand seasons late at Rugged in College Park or Value Village).

Still, as I find myself matriculating further and further into the adult world, I’m buying nicer clothes. I recently bought a handful of new shirts from a decent store in the mall. While I can wash them in the laundry, I’d still have to press them. I don’t have time for this nonsense, so I brought them to my dry cleaner. Now, as with most things in my life (see the fact I wear second-hand shit somebody probably died in), I like to save money. I don’t go to a ‘nice’ dry cleaner. I go to the one on Georgia Avenue, in Silver Spring. Usually this is enough for people to look at me, give me an acknowledging nod as they recall the sketchy center I send my delicates. For those who are less familiar with the area, my clothes are currently residing at Dry Clean Direct, evidenced below:

I only started going there because my boss goes there. Yes, everything there is $1.98 to wash, unless it’s traditional African garb ($5, any size) or a comforter. Dirt cheap. I basically just need my Express shirts to have that great chemical smell (formaldehyde, perhaps?) and have less wrinkles than when I dropped it off. As I was looking at my receipt yesterday morning, I noticed that the top portion stated that shirts were $1.19. Funny. I was charged $1.98 for all of my items. I was ticked at the error, and set out to correct them. If they wouldn’t reimburse my the 79 cent difference, I had a whole tirade planned where I would threaten to go to a cleaner who actually knew what a goddamn shirt was. As is the title of this post, it is better to close your mouth and be thought an idiot than to open your mouth and be proven one. Wise words from my Dad. Except that, like most idiots, I don't think I'm wrong. 

I brought up the cost discrepancy yesterday at work. It’s not that I can’t pay the almost $4 in total difference, but it was the principle of the matter. So I asked my boss if she thought I should raise a fuss and she gave me the information. Apparently, everything I thought I knew about dry cleaners was wrong. Now, I didn't intend for this to be a feminist rant (sorry Deb), but for once in my life, I’m actually on the woman’s side of things. Here’s why.

Are you aware that dry cleaners literally everywhere will charge more for a woman’s shirt than a man’s? That’s right. Because my buttons are on the other side, I have to pay more to have my shirt cleaned. The dry cleaners give some bullshit reason that it takes more time to press a woman’s shirt because of the variety of materials in it, and that it’s more delicate, and blah blah blah. Are we really going to make Veronika below pay more for dry cleaning?

I’m enraged. This is pure crap. There is no way it could possibly take my XS shirt from Express that much more time than a man’s shirts. In fact, when I looked up the male equivalents of my shirt, the materials were exactly the same: 97% cotton, 3% spandex. My shirt isn’t woven with unicorn hairs that need extra care to dry clean. It’s the same goddamn fabric as a man’s, yet I’m getting charged 79 freaking cents to get my shirt cleaned. AND I’M SMALLER. I’M LESS CHEMICALS AND TIME. But that’s another rant.

I can’t help being a woman, but apparently dry cleaners feel the right to bully woman into paying more for their services. I’m not the only person outraged about this. I read a bunch of articles on this similar topic, and it’s not a new point of dissent either. Some solutions proposed are to implement a flat fee for shirts, man or women’s. Or, base it by material costs. Whatever. Apparently I’m supposed to accept the fact that the extra space taken up by my breasts in a shirt means that I have to pay more.

I know it’s not a big deal, because I’m still getting a fantastic deal at my probably illegal dry cleaners. It is strictly cash only there, pay up front. But still. I understand paying more for a haircut if I have longer hair. I understand paying more for a liter of beer than a pint. This makes sense. But paying more for a shirt just because IN THE PAST, they used to be more difficult to wash? This is shit.

If I were serious, I’d probably never visit a dry cleaner again. But I’m lazy, and just under $2 a shirt is still worth it for me. But like periods and long lines to the restrooms, women just get shafted again. Fuck. Whatever, I’m going to start buying tuxedo t-shirts.