One Christmas gift from my mom was this letter she found that I wrote to myself when I was a teenager.

I’m a little late opening it — only sixteen years.

I was hoping to find evidence of a compassionate and deep thinking young woman with her eye toward the future.  But what I discovered once again was confirmation that I was a tool.  Exhibit A:  A description of my style:  ”Casual Euro, Question Mark?”

Is this leopard dress over an alluring mock turtleneck what I meant by “casual Euro?”

Or maybe this?  Here’s my sister and I, two casual Euros behaving casually on a wall.

This had to be what I meant by casual Euro: white gym socks, sandals and roomy walking shorts — casual German. Accessorized by a sexy, flesh-colored Chevy Chevette.

The other day an acquaintance of mine said she’s decided to simplify her life by culling her Facebook friends.

“There’s been a few who have been really ticking me off lately,” she said.  ”I don’t like the tone of some of their comments and status updates.”

I looked at her and tried to gauge if she actually thought this was of some significance….as if un-friending people on Facebook really was going to make her life more enjoyable.

I know I must sound like a righteous geezer, and I’ve never, to date, had a “Facebook fight” or been maliciously stalked online but to me culling Facebook friends has roughly the same impact as deleting emails from my inbox; it’s a completely pointless exercise because the friendship doesn’t really exist in the first place. 

For the past week, I’ve had this image of this woman scrolling down the head shots of her Facebook friends and contemptuously excising those whose status update weren’t up to par.  ”And you, Bart from high school — I don’t really care about your hunting memoir that’s coming out from Ted Nugent Press this fall — UNFRIEND!    And Debbie, well, Debbie, this is what you get for forgetting to bring me an iced decaf cap in time for yesterday’s meeting — UNFRIEND!”

The question is, what happens once the unwanted friends have been cut loose?  Is there a feeling of lightness and accomplishment?  Greater organization? A sense of lordly power?

Does anyone have experience with this?

Is it wrong that I exploit one man’s fatigue for my own amusement?  Is it?

(I never said I wasn’t evil.)

Reader Alison from Not Your Church Cookbook spotted this curious sign while on vacation last week and said she thought of me.  Garsh.  I don’t know what to say, Alison.  I’m honored, humbled, concerned?  I need a few hobbies?  I assume that hot cornflower blue smock is part of the Sidewalk Sale? (I do look rather fetching in a smock….)

This motivational poster caught my eye at a second hand shop.  ”It is wonderful to be women,” reads the grammatically suspect message. “There is no limit to what we are capable of doing.”

True.  This country gal looks capable of beating you with her broomstick if you take her turnips.

Note the bulleted list of the fair gender’s assets and accomplishments:  Women are, as a sex, “completely good.”  Not just good some or part of the time, but completely good, like some sort of spectral deity who rides into the turnip patch on a rainbow.

Among ladies’ assets:  ”We have a reproductive system suited to our gender.”   Yes, in the same way turtles have shells suited to their species.  Go women.  And turtles.

“Physically powerful.  Athletic. Capable of setting everything right.”   See:  The country gal’s broomstick.

What is the difference between a hillbilly and a redneck? Commenter Suz asked the question and I’m going to take a stab at answering this probing question…..hopefully without offending wide swaths of my readership.

It seems to me that rednecks live to a higher standard than hillbillies.  Rednecks go to church, pay taxes, hold jobs, say please and thank you, buy expensive equipment, work hard (outside, hence the red neck) and eat from the four food groups.  Hillbillies, on the other hand, don’t necessarily pay taxes because they don’t always hold jobs, and when faced with a picture of something like an apple, they go, “Whassat?”  (True story — my friend Laura used to work at the free clinic and said she had to deal with all sorts of country people who had never seen such exoticisms as grapes and avocados.)  Rednecks can be computer literate; I don’t fear reprisal from hillbillies because I’m not sure they own them let alone “ride Internet.”

Herewith, a few other hillbilly/redneck differences. (Forgive the shoddy artwork; it was my first attempt drawing a grid using Google Docs.)

One of my most colorful memories from high school was the day this girl — a “dirt head,” one of a tribe of high schoolers who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, sported mullets, got in fist fights, listened to Ratt and considered cigarettes hot lunch —  looked at me during art class and spat, “Eat s&#t, suck dog t&*ts.”

“Eat s&#t, suck dog t&*ts.”  It’s been seared in my memory ever since.

Now, I can’t remember what it was I said to this person to provoke such a response, though I have a feeling it wasn’t “Can you please pass the Elmer’s Glue?”  Knowing me and my smooth teenage social skills it was probably something more along the lines of, “Nice hickey–was that a gift from a family friend?”

Well, this person has become inexplicably, though not surprisingly my Facebook friend.   And every time I see one of her status updates, the words “eat s&#t, suck dog t&*ts” whispers in my ear.  Compounding the phrase’s lingering effect on me is the fact that she is now a bodybuilder in New Mexico who also works as a nail technician.  So every other picture she posts is either a shot of her a) rippled but weirdly lumpy, mohagoney hued body in a string bikini smiling menacingly at the camera or b) latest trashy nail creation or c) a combo thereof.

I find I have become a perverse voyeur in this woman’s life.  I have gone to her page, scrolled through her pictures, stared aghast at the boulder like appendages that protrude from her chest, a poor surgical approximation of breasts, and wondered how she lights her Misty 1000s cigarettes with nails that long and purple.

Had she never said “eat s&#t, suck dog t&*ts” to me, I would have never given this person a second thought.  And now I’m pretty much obsessed with her.

Around here, when I go to the grocery store, the cashier deposits two, maybe three items in each plastic bag. A bag for peanut butter and jam. A bag for chips and bread. Each bag is double bagged. You know, just in case the peanut butter violently rips a hole in the corner of the bag and falls to the ground. This makes me insane.  (Especially since I keep three cloth bags in the trunk of my car but ever since I had June, I can’t for the life of me remember to bring them into the store until it’s time to pay!) So I’ve turned into That Lady who, when she reaches the head of the line, says, “Go ahead and really stuff the bags full. That’s it, really stuff ‘em.  I don’t mind the toilet cleaner rubs up against the bananas — I’m not into segregation, he he.”

That’s when they look at me like they need this shift to be over.

This is an interesting way to learn about your local cashier.  Sometimes the cashier will stuff the bags so full the plastic really does start to perilously stretch.  This conveys to me a like-minded soul who also abhors waste, or someone who in their own feeble way likes to push the envelope (“you asked for it, lady”).  Other cashiers will load the bags ever so slightly fuller but still go to lengths to keep each food item separate — the vegetables in one bag, the fruit in another, the toiletries in a third (never mind that all food items co-mingled in the cart).  And then there’s the third type of cashier who awkwardly deposits four items in a bag instead of the usual three, as if her consciousness has never grasped the idea that there is only a finite number of plastic bags in this world and we should all do what we can to conserve this precious resource.

I’ve learned that you can tell what kind of bagger you’ll get by their face.  This hypothesis is by no means conclusive but it’s worked fairly well for me so far:

Cashier who wears spackle make-up:   This indicates someone of low environmental awareness and/or sensitivity. Expect the bananas to get their very own bag!  Even if you ask her to “really stuff ‘em,” this person is cognitively incapable of curbing waste. She’ll either ignore you completely or look at you pitifully like you are a SNI (special needs individual).

Cashier with missing tooth/teeth:  Connotes someone who lives on the edge and/or cares little about appearance.  She’ll try to cram a whole cart into one bag.  Gets me every time.

Cashier with a careful comb-over or some kind of fanciful hair accessory:  This gentlemen or lady is fastidious but not anal. He/she will bag your items by type — fruit in one bag, vegetables in another. By far the most conscientious of the three.

I almost feel bad for cashiers because I’m sure they get these requests often.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a growing occupational hazard as everyone has their own idea about what constitutes “a full bag.”  For some, five items is the absolute max allowable by humans. For others, like me, stuff that bag until that sucker rips!

I can only hope my daughter grows up to be as cool as this Austrian teen here.