Things I just don't get...

OK, admittedly I don't "get" a lot of things (announcers who get excited about ice dancing, the attraction of soccer, Paris Hilton, "lite" beer), but these are the things right now I just don't "get":


1. The Whole Big Sunglasses Thing
I guess it’s been the style for a while now (sorry, I lost my most recent issue of Vogue), but I don’t know what’s up with whole big sunglasses thing. All of these tiny girls with tiny heads and big sunglasses that look like TV screens. I’m used to it on short, blue-haired old women who have owned this look for decades, but on the apparently-hip chick (and occasional guy)…? Did Edie Sedgewick make a comeback I wasn’t aware of? I can’t look at any of them without thinking of Fearless Fly.

2. Fancy Rims on Crappy Cars
Is it more sad than pathetic or more pathetic than sad? Not sure which, but I’m just trying to figure out who these guys think they’re fooling. You’ve seen them, tooling slowing down the street, wrist resting on the top of the steering wheel in a devil-may-care attitude, head invariably nodding to the beat of a bass line eminating from their car’s speakers that threatens to dislodge the rust and Bondo holding their 1978 Ford Impala together. Yet the thing that draws your attention is the wheels, as shiny and glistening as the rest of the car is dull and dented. They sometimes spin at stoplights in a mesmerizing display while the car’s engine sputters like an old man being forced to walk up five flights of stairs. Hey guys…GUYS! TURN THE STEREO DOWN… IT’S NOT WORKING!! THE RIMS!!!… THEY’RE NOT WORKING!! YOU LOOK STUPID!!! ... OKAY, NO PROBLEM!!!

3. Terrell Owens.
Immensely talented. Great speed, great hands, great sense of the field. And a complete asshole. More than half the men in the country would give at least 75 percent of their testicles to be TO for a year: the money, the fame, the talent, the money, the women, the money… you get the drift. But for Owens, wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, it’s not enough. He wants to be loved. He wants to be respected. So how does he plan to achieve this? By calling his quarterback, the guy who’s supposed to get the ball to him, a pussy, as he did with the Philadelphia Eagles last year. By sitting out practices he’s paid to attend. By drawing attention to himself in every way possible (pulling a pen out of his sock and autographing a football after a touchdown and throwing it in the stands or joining the cheerleaders for a sideline cheer after another TD). By claiming he’s been slighted, maligned, demeaned, all while making close to eleventy-bazillion dollars a year. Run, catch, run some more: that is all that is required of him out of his professional life. And he can’t seem to do that without becoming a jerk. I don’t get it. He is the asshole that assholes call an asshole.

4. Nudity in Vermont.
You may have read about it: Teens walking around nude in Brattleboro, Vermont for no apparent reason other than they have an unstated permission to do it. Um… OK. I understand the whole freedom thing, letting it all hang out (both figuratively and literally) as they used to say, we shouldn’t be ashamed of our bodies and blah blah blah… But, c’mon… I’ve read a few stories on this and it’s been mostly men/boys who are being quoted on this subject, defending the practice and avidly participating in it. But if there’s anyone who should NOT be naked on a city street, it’s probably a teenage boy. Unless they have complete control of their… um…response reflex, it could be an embarrassing situation for them and anyone who comes within eight… seven? ….six inches of them. If you’re a teenager in Vermont who want to be embarrassed, get caught in the car with booze or with a girl in your bedroom. Not standing on the street naked in the middle of the day with a hard-on that just won’t go away.