Mexicans to mow the lawn, poor black ladies to clean the house, Vietnamese girls for pedicures, gay dudes at the Day Spa for massages, the Ukrainian nanny, the Korean seamstress/dry cleaner, the Brazilian bikini waxer, the starving MFA to tutor your ADD children …. There are just so many slaves to pay, in America, when you are Upper Middle Class! And now there’s no money, so well-off Americans are suddenly forced to trim their own pubes, etc. Hard Times!
The problem for better-off Americans is that they literally know how to do nothing, as far as taking care of themselves. Earlier generations mowed their own grass, painted their own houses, even cut their own families’ hair with either the traditional bowl ‘n scissors or with a cheap ’70s device such as the Flowbee.
So now that the New Depression is in full swing and many previously fancy people realize they’re broke, it’s domestic chaos out there. How would one, say, dye one’s own hair? What does that even involve? How do you figure out something alien like cooking? What if a headlight burns out on your Lexus and you can no longer take it in to the dealer for “service”?
It’s a whole new world, as the New Poor are forced to, for example, visit one of those Autozone or Kragen stores at the end of the crappy old strip mall previously only noticed for the authentic Cuban bakery.
Within one week, Mary changed the bulb in the headlight of her Mercedes, cutting out a $120 trip to the mechanic. The couple made a cake for their 11-year-old daughter’s birthday party instead of spending $50 at the local bakery. And Chris, who works in a management job, picked up some cans of paint from the Sears in Fair Oaks to help a friend redecorate — seven hours of work but a savings of roughly $1,000.
Yikes! If Obama doesn’t save the Economy quick, these people may soon be forced to wipe their own ass.
Home Economics of Anxious Times: Dyeing Your Hair in the Kitchen Sink [Washington Post]
{ 109 comments }
I would rather be stricken with Influenza than lay hands on a single unclean dish.
Does this mean I have to tweeze my own eyebrows? Oh hell.
OMFG! I’m going to write a book entitled So That’s How Rosario It! with illustrations instructing laid-off yuppies how to make a bed, scrub a pot, separate their whites, and raise their children.
I would never pay someone to paint (unless pizza counts), but it sure is a pain in the ass, no matter how poor you are.
Wait. So they’re not blowing money on crap they can do themselves? Why do they hate America?
Oh yeah. Because it’s full of idiots who blow money on crap they can do themselves.
Now, back to solving “The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of the Sink Full of Urine.”
Luckily I can still pay the Swedish Spa boys to wax my back.
Anyone that spends $120 to change a lightbulb deserves…. bad things
No lie, I had a dream last night that Michael Clarke Duncan took a mighty dump on my kitchen floor and I was forced to clean it up with an equally mighty wad of paper towels.
I’d like to see Obama fix this for me, but he won’t. I was a fool to think he ever would.
But Ken, consumer spending is the root of all economy. If I fire my massage therapist and my maid, then they will have to fire their massage therapist and maid. Then they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and before long, our hair won’t be bouncing and behaving.
Here’ a tip for DIY haircuts: abut two mirrors on an inside corner above your sink so that you view your head “not reversed”. You won’t be confused about which hand is doing what ungodly thing to your coiffe. Hack away, people.
THESE KHAKIS AREN’T GOING TO IRON THEMSELVES PEOPLE!
[re=253752]shortsshortsshorts[/re]: Have you ever pulled pasta out of a clogged drain? Oh, me neither. My roommates were just wondering. They do it a lot.
Wait, so all these years of getting mani/pedi’s at the Koreans. . .I could’ve been saving a few $ by going Vietnamese? What a world . . .
[re=253763]Jonny Lieberman[/re]:
No, they deserve the telephone number of my $60.00 per bulb light-changing service.
The horror! The horror!
I want white kids to do my chores.
Can I have Jenna Bush trim my hedges, please?
What if you were “already poor” and are now “really fucking poor”? Instead of changing the burnt out headlight in your 1995 Hyundai Accent you drive with one headlight. Instead of making a Duncan Hines box cake, you steal ketchup packets from McDonalds and tell the kids it’s red frosting. Instead of buying paint at sears, you smear shit on the walls of your foreclosed home. Saving is fun.
Waxing your bush at home is surprising cheap and easy. Also.
DYE MY OWN HAIR!!!???? Are you kidding?!
Besides, latte-sipping, commie libtards, what will happen to all the slaves? Huh?
Let’s all hope in the end they’ll be forced to go to Mexico and do housework for pesos there.
[re=253775]actor212[/re]: I see what you did there.
[re=253771]Colander[/re]: Those lowly cretins. We should put them in shackles and place them in a nunnery.
[re=253759]monkeyrotica[/re]: “The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of the Sink Full of Urine.”
That sounds like a frat party I went to my freshman year in college.
I’m gonna start using the term “formerly fancy”.
Please read deeply and carefully in this excellent piece of official Washington Post “journalism” and observe that its assertions are supported by only a pitiful few racist “facts,” and many assertions, to-be-sure’s and comes-at-a-time-when’s. Sure sounds like it oughta be true, though!
So what, I have to give myself a happy ending on the Shiatusu pad? The economy has shriveled more than I have.
[re=253780]NoWireHangers[/re]: Just call me when you get home!
[re=253775]actor212[/re]: Wouldn’t you want Jeanna Bush to trim your bush instead?
Dahlink! I haff most amazing lunch today at Paulo’s! Eeet was a peanut butter and jelly sammich and he made it himself! One dollar, max, he told me – can you believe it?
Desperate Housewives, and by Housewives I mean Horse’s Assez. Welcome the the dying middle class.
I love it when people don’t know how to separate the laundry! If you meet someone like that, always recommend bleach.
But one man’s “do it yourself and let a slave starve” is another man’s “employ a dumb Republican loser’s wife”. Yes, I’m talking about Laurie Coleman’s Blo and Go!
[re=253791]V572625694[/re]: The Post is so depressing lately. They seem to have fired all the copy editors. (My husband and I play a game now: who can find more errors). And the paper has gotten thinner and thinner. Then, there is this bizarre notion that you have to present “two sides”, even when there really is only one sane one (“So, OK, so let’s get Mr. Hitler’s take on this issue, since we have the Jews’ opinions. We have to be fair, right?”), so they just print shit opinion pieces.
Not to quote Sully, but I will quote Sully:
“I’m still trying to absorb why the Washington Post would want to pick up a columnist fired by the NYT after an execrably dishonest series of partisan memos masquerading as journalism. Seriously: does Fred Hiatt believe Kristol’s NYT columns were so good he had to get a piece of the action?”
But on a more serious note, I really feel for these people in the story. We have recently had to cut back the food rations for the three Sudanese slavegirls we keep in the basement. And, isn’t it always the way, now they bitch about being too tired to do their chores. You just cannot win.
It’s because of thoughtless inconsiderate arseholes like these that the likes of Samuel “Call Me Joe” Wurzelbacher is unemployed and behind in paying his taxes.
How’s “Joe” EVER gonna buy his boss’ million dollar business at THIS rate?
I pretty much do everything myself already, non-deadly stuff anyway, but I’m going to attempt electrical work soon, as in install new breakers(bypass the power meter). TEH END IS NEAR!
[re=253811]Come here a minute[/re]: Does Laurie do “blowbangs?”
[re=253817]Doglessliberal[/re]: I’m actually more surprised that this wasn’t posted in the NYT Styles section. It has the same whiff of one of their usual, “The Troubles of Decorating your Second Home” pieces.
[re=253819]Canuckledragger[/re]: speaking of JOe, how pathetic is this?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022600005.html
[re=253832]NoWireHangers[/re]: totally.
[re=253822]Hamster[/re]:
Just remember: That which does not kill me burns my house down.
More from article — “She has called off the lawn care service …But she is holding on to DoodyCalls, a company that cleans up after her pets in the yard.”
DoodyCalls is going to be pissed when they have to remove dog poop that has settled and smeared itself into tall weeds. Because if you can’t scoop your own dog’s business, I doubt you can push a fucking lawnmower, either.
A tip from the lesbian world where we’ve always cut our own hair….. don’t do it unless you’re willing to shave your head. Seriously, you think we like the shaved head look? You’re mistaken. It just means we fucked up on the crew cut. Also, mirrors. Also.
This great depression has finally made me realize on good point about growing up poor in the middle of nowhere. It makes your really fucking handy. When total breakdown of society comes I plan on surviving solely on my plumbing and vegetable growing skills.
I wonder if rich people will suddenly start befriending random lesbians due to our inherent plumbing and car-repair skills.
I hope this doesn’t mean people are cutting back on whores. Girl’s gotta make a living and all.
[re=253780]NoWireHangers[/re]: It is NOT easy to wax yourself at home. You could accidently wax yourself onto the lid of the toilet where you remain stuck until you are able to reach the baby scissors with your toes and then you are forced to snip yourself off the seat.
This happened to a “friend” of mine.
I just spent a couple days painting a room in my new place. I had no idea I’d saved $1,000. Drinks on me, everyone — I’m rich!
[re=253778]NoWireHangers[/re]: [re=253800]Jukesgrrl[/re]: EXACTLY. this is the kind of shit that I find just unbelievable. Makes me want to find these “no-longer-fancys’” parents and grab them by the throat. How do you become an adult and not somehow absorb how to fucking separate your laundry?! It’s like those jackasses I see on cooking shows who proudly admit to barely being able to boil a kettle of water. I mean- really?
Ah, well. At least we all know when the apocalypse comes, these fuckers will be the first ones skinned and eaten along The Road.
[re=253845]OffTheRecord[/re]: …grow veggies and sell them to the formerly fancy, those idiots love that road-side veggie stand shit.
I am in awe of adult men and women who hire a person specifically to clean up after their dogs, because poo is icky.
[re=253861]Hamster[/re]: And you prefer to buy your veggies from giant agribusinesses because…
Do it ourselves? WTF? Did we lose a war? That’s not America…That’s not even Mexico.
[re=253878]Tra[/re]:
Same reason I’ve got someone who comes in twice a week to wipe my ass.
“Brenda Waller, 42, of Herndon said her consulting firm has frozen salaries, and she’s worried about the future. She has called off the lawn care service for the coming summer and asked the woman who does her nails to cut them extra short — so the manicure will last longer.”
Wow, I’m glad Brenda’s really stepping up to the plate about this whole recession thing, even though its sooooo inconvenient. Her nails, I’m sure, look a hell of a lot better when they’re a bit longer (that way the poors know she gets them done quite often)
Are these people fucking retarded? Has the education system failed to THIS extent?
[re=253859]Dr. Weird[/re]: It’s their parents that spoil and coddle them to the point where they grow up to be spoiled, moronic, adults completely incapable of caring for themselves. Exhibit A: W
Hopefully the New Great Depression will thin the herd a little.
[re=253889]Mad Farmer Manifest[/re]: I grow my own for the most part, the Baltimore has a kick as farmers market …which has become overrun with trophy wives pushing $400 strollers. Want to buy some hydroponic herbs(food herbs)? I got plenty!
Heavens! Think of the men who will now have to resort to fucking their wives?
[re=253853]hockeymom[/re]: Hahahaha!
Not to turn this thread into the Jezebel comments section, but I would recommend this stuff:
http://www.americarx.com/Products/8564.html?utm_source=1far2obo3gcl4ed&utm_medium=1cap2cb&utm_term=Surgi-Wax&utm_campaign=product
No strips, microwaveable, pretty easy. Just don’t leave it on too long or you’re fucked.
Haha! Welcome To My Weekend, former riches.
Dude, I used to clean for rich people. They’re terrible about the toilet. Especially the menstruating teenage girls. It’s bad, guys.
[re=253894]Serolf Divad[/re]: Whether it needs it or not, huh?
[re=253817]Doglessliberal[/re]: Count yourself luck to have WaPo, while it lasts. Or glimpse your newspaper future by reading, say, the San Diego Union-Tribune.
[re=253843]smashtheduck[/re]: As a straight dude I actually kind of find the whole bald chick thing kind of techno sexy. Never been able to talk anyone into it outside of burning man.
[re=253759]monkeyrotica[/re]: Except, of course, that people spending money for others to do things more expensively than they could is, you know, good for the economy. Just sayin’. . .
[re=253842]blueduck[/re]: sloppy BLOG journalism from wonkette on this one. doody calls was quite possibly the best part of this entire shitball of an article.
[re=253916]V572625694[/re]: I know, I know, and I am a Luddite who likes to hold an actual paper (though I use the WaPo site all day, too), so I am lucky to have it and its great comics page, too. But it is just sad.
[re=253907]NoWireHangers[/re]: Thanks…and cheap, too!
[re=253921]finland[/re]: The Doody Calls guy is big time around here. He has ads all over the place, including in the WaPo and Washingtonian. They guy is a genius. Also big around here are dog bakeries and doggie day care and dog overnight spas (formerly known as the pound).
To-wit:
http://www.oldetownepetresort.com/facility.html
I am thinking a lot of people might like such accomodations these days.
[re=253907]NoWireHangers[/re]: from your link: “No muslin strips”
DONE. I BOUGHT 600 BOXES OF THE STUFF.
[re=253938]Doglessliberal[/re]: you people are sick. not to start the culture wars or anything, but this is why people have cats.
i meant “you DC people” – if your username does indeed speak the truth.
[re=253954]finland[/re]: Us people???? I don’t own a dog. I have a large cat. When we are out of town, we have someone come in and dump food in his bowl twice a day.
Wait, bikini waxer? Where do I sign up for that job?
[re=253959]finland[/re]: yes, though “DC people” needs to include the entire metro area, as the Olde Towne Pet Resort is about 40 mins outside DC in VA. Alexandria, where I live, has three (3) dog bakeries and a doggie happy hour at the local Hotel Monaco on Thursday nights (though that is really just a singles happy hour where people can bring their dogs). My favorite was at a dog clothing, etc store in town, they were selling…..fur coats (real) for dogs. No, I joke not. $500 or so.
[re=253903]Hamster[/re]: My apologies. We are on the exact same page, my friend. I feel your pain on the dumbass trophy wives. I can’t decide if I should give them credit for trying or give them the “show some common courtesy, dumbshit” lecture.
Wow you can dye your own cloths, who knew? Not ugly tie dye tee shirts, actual adult cloths. Now that’s news I can use, really I’m amazed. I’m gonna do it. Thanks wonkette.
[re=253966]Doglessliberal[/re]: our cats would kill for such stellar treatment. last time we went out of town i had nightmares about dead cats because the neighbors could only check in on them once every three days ><
i was just thinking of the flowbee the other day, and i wondered if i’d imagined it! thanks for the, affirmed, memory.
[re=253979]finland[/re]: next time, buy some hamsters and let them loose before you go. Heh.
[re=253845]OffTheRecord[/re]: preach it!
These people are not a WaPo invention. I was talking to coworkers about cutting back and realized all those expensive services they are cutting back on (facials/massages/manicures/housecleaning/takeout meals/$200 jeans), I pretty much never bought. Which makes me feel that during the boom, I was totally doing it wrong.
[re=253954]finland[/re]: Thank god you seized upon that primo joke opportunity. I can’t believe I missed it!
[re=253907]NoWireHangers[/re]: OMG, I have a “friend” who actually sells product to the operator of this website. And for years, my “friend” told me he was a door-to-door bible salesman.
Just wait until they have to grow their own veggies, like Russians did in the 90s. On the bright side, if you get a couple of goats, you can definitely cancel that lawn mowing service. Also, make sure to tether those bastards very well and never ever leaves any clothes drying around them. Ever. They nom EVERYTHING.
[re=253752]shortsshortsshorts[/re]: With our flourishing health care system, you just might get your wish!
Silly Liberals! You don’t have to let any of your staff go if they are indentured.
[re=253903]Hamster[/re]: You have no idea how much I envy you. I live in the middle of Chicago. I miss my family dacha near Moscow, with a huge herb garden and a dozen types of berry bushes/vines/rows… arg.
Someone come up with vertical farm arrangements for the city already!! I want a plot of land dammit. Not much, 1/100 hectare will do.
[re=254041]getoffmylawn[/re]: That’s ironic because I work in an office, but I tell my friends I sell pube wax.
[re=253778]NoWireHangers[/re]: In high school I used to stock up on Hot Mustard from McDonald’s and eat it with bread. Yum, lunch!
“steal ketchup packets from McDonalds”
I seem to remember this was one of the money-saving tips that the Weekly World News used to recommend.
“employ a dumb Republican loser’s wife”.
Employ them in what way?
“I hope this doesn’t mean people are cutting back on whores. Girl’s gotta make a living and all.” Employment for Repube wives? Maybe in a BJ bar, where looks don’t mattter.
[re=254116]zhubajie[/re]: fluffer
“Just wait until they have to grow their own veggies, like Russians did in the 90s.” I spoke with a prof from the University of Khabarovsk one, and her pay package included a garden plot.
“zhubajie: fluffer”
Made obsolete by Viagra, surely?
How to get those dye stains out of the kitchen sink?
[re=253817]Doglessliberal[/re]: They got Kr*st*l because he’s CHEAP. Looked at those private school tuition bills and decided he had to start moonlighting from his full-time day job being an asshole.
The Post needs cheap because it’s going broke. Next thing you know they’re going to make David Broder double as a fact-checker. For George Will. God help them. God help us all, sez Tiny Tim.
Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em eat arugula.
Also.
Whole Foods has some good samples, enough to make a meal out of it even!
http://democralypsenow.blogspot.com/
[re=253817]Doglessliberal[/re]: This was nice to read. God what a piece of crap the Post has become. I canceled my subscription a year ago & don’t miss having a new newspaper to throw away every day.
WaPo needs to give us really useful articles. For instance, what wild plants and berries are “safe” to eat. And “how-to” segments on the best ways to waterproof cardboard appliance boxes so they can be better living structures. Not to mention how to clean fresh-killed squirrels and pigeons to end up with the most meat on the barbie.
[re=253845]OffTheRecord[/re]: Like you, I am now glad I grew up in a fairly self-sufficient family. When the house needed a new roof, granddad, dad, and the uncles had that baby done in a day for only the price of materials and a case of beer. I was hauling singles up the ladder to them when I was only 8 — in violation of at least a dozen child-labor laws.
[re=253920]Canuck13652[/re]: Except, of course, that people spending money for others to do things more expensively than they could is, you know, good for the economy. Just sayin’. .
aka the paradox of thrift man, paradox of thrift…
Here is a recent invitation I received:
You and your significant other
are cordially invited to a
Gloom Busting
Spring Poverty Party
Dress: Threadbare
Menu:
Imbibement -
Sterno cocktails and wind tea
To begin-
Stone Soup
Cigar butt pate
Entrée -
Muskrat fritters
What the dogs drag in Surprise
(recent delicacies have been slightly mangled possum and rabbit)
Turnip greens and taters
Afterwards –
Onion grass or scared pudding
Please bring small stones for soup and mason jars for drinks and/or soup
Awards provided for holiest shoes and most patches
Friday, March 20th from 6 PM till the liquor runs out
SO, I HAD TO EMAIL MY CHILDREN THAT WE HAD TO CHANGE BIRTHDAY PARTY PLANS:
Ha ha you all suck look at the invitation Steve and I got, because we know the right sorts of people we get to be hobos while the rest of you make futile attempts to redecorate your pathetic cardboard boxes under the freeway or get a useless degree that will overqualify you for working at Chuckie Cheese thus leaving you perpetually unemployed bwa ha ha snark and guess what we will be dressing in our finest hobo gear on Friday night so tough noogies for all you who voted for birthday dinner Friday because now it HAS to be Saturday.
Write your congressman if you don’t like it for all the good it’ll do. No bailouts!
AND THEN I HAD TO RSVP THUSLY:
O Mi GOD I always aspired to be a hobo. For years now, I’ve been prepared to relocate to an extra fancy cardboard box under the route 78 freeway overpass, and lately it looks like finally I have my chance.
Thanks for the invite, Steve and I plan to show up, but not in our shabbiest attire as requested;
Rather, Steve is planning his sartorial splendour around an (admittedly threadbare, even perhaps shredded) Republican tux, with wisps of Conservative nostalgia lingering pestilentially on his bow tie – whereas for my part, I have little left to flaunt than a bias-cut silky and sultry 30′s era gown, that should remind you of My Man Godfrey, I hope – in addition, although I can no longer afford the real thing and have since hocked the original, I plan to fashion special for the occasion, a tin-foil tiara.
Hope that is acceptable
oh damn I said hope twice.
Whoops Sorry!
NOW YOU ALL START YOUR OWN HOBO PARTIES. ROASTING WHOLE POTATOS IN BURNING RUBBAGE IS TASTY!!!
Euell Gibbons: Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible!
It sure is great fun to deride the rich when they choose to spend money to have things done for them that they could most-likely do for themselves.
I find it amusing that in this bastion of liberalism nobody seems to give a whit about the gardeners, mechanics, cleaning people, manicurists, yes and even the poop guy who have seen their incomes decimated. I bet none of them are laughing.
I propose we put those lower/middle class folks on the dole, dish em up some TARP and surplus government cheese and make em further beholden to the DNC in order to secure our power.
As for the rich: Damn them all to hell for daring to turn into savers, after the Fed went to all the trouble of lowering interest rates to zero in order to disincentivize that economy-crushing act. I say raise their taxes in retaliation and hope that they don’t curtail their spending even more, to the point where they start changing their own oil and washing their own cars.
From the article, it sounds like half of the slaves in this country are kept busy picking up pet shit.
[re=253859]Dr. Weird[/re]: Dear Doctor, In the coming apocalypse please wear a name tag so I can find you. We can hang together and double up on the life skills. I know how to fix broken toilets with scotch tape.
We’ll know when it really gets bad if people are no longer able to make hobo jokes. Then again, laughing might be all we can afford. YAY free laughing!
If you went to college you can always fall back on those living in poverty skills. I still got ‘em, I went into education. Wheee.
I guess right about now, I’m glad I was always too cheap to pay people to do things for me. The one and only luxury I’ve ever afforded myself is getting my hair colored and cut every eight weeks. She’s getting so bad off, she’s taking things in trade now for haircuts. But we never paid anyone to do any lawn care or landscaping, or most things around the house. Once we paid people to put ceramic tile in the kitchen. And we can’t fix our own air conditioning system. That’s it. Hubby does the oil changes. I can’t fathom paying someone to pick up the animal’s poop. We have four indoor cats and we wanted to adopt a couple more (rescue) but I worry about feeding two more and buying more kitty litter.
Downer post. Sorry.
Oh and I KNEW prepping for Y2K would come in handy someday! Yay for paranoia with long-postponed advantageous results.
[re=253811]Come here a minute[/re]: Does that come with a spit or swallow?
As a not actually starving but ndeed very poor and highly underemployed MFA, I’d like to thank you for thinking of me and my brethren/sororethren in the beginning of this article. It was very kind of you to include us with the other list of teh poors.
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