My brother and I have decided not to exchange Christmas presents this year. Instead, we are going to help someone in need. You know how they have those Christmas Lists that kids write and they get printed in the paper? Well, we got way lucky. My brother found someone’s Christmas List on the Metro North, while commuting from NYC back to Connecticut! Actually, the guy who was sitting next to him forgot it when he was collecting the rest of his fancy Wall Street Investment Reports and got off the train in Mamaroneck.
I would like to propose that we all band together and get this poor girl the items from her “dream wish list.” I think this girl has really and truly embraced the spirit of Christmas. Her boyfriend already put notes next to everything so some of the legwork is even done for us!
Let’s pause for some commentary. I like how her poor, obviously long-suffering boyfriend, put a question mark next to bicycle and “whatever the newest Chanel makeup is (as long as I don’t already have it.)” What is this guy supposed to do? Look through your makeup bag, take notes, and then go to the counter and say “Give me everything newer than this?” I also love that she misspelled Kerastase and he inserted the “S.” He seems detail oriented. (I have a theory that there are two types of people in the world: Detail Oriented and Big Picture. Detail oriented are the ones who crunch the numbers, dot the I’s, cross the T’s, and make sure the bills are paid on time. They are your Assistants, Associates, Analysts, etc, and they do not typically make a lot of money. The Big Picture people are the geniuses who see the path to success, the ones who can make it all happen, the movers and shakers. A Big Picture person would dispense this nonsense list to his assistant to handle so he could go off to make more money.) I think “Ivana More Stuff” set her sights on someone who may not be able to pay for her lofty ambitions.
She also wants Louis Vuitton City Guides, which you can clearly get on the cheap by another publisher. Has she heard of Fodors? Frommers? Phonies? Okay, maybe not that last one. But, she wants classic literature cheap. In fact, that’s the only thing she is price sensitive to. Poor Dickens is rolling over in his grave right now.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
How…fitting.
Oh, and speaking of things that fit, on to the shoes!
I would love to post a picture of the Louboutins, however, those fuckers defied all previous fashion norms and managed to copyright that stupid red sole they have. I worked in Fashion for a few years and this is unprecedented! Designers just had to live with being knocked off. So, anyone who posts a picture of their shoes gets slammed with a copyright infringement notice. I will, however, give you this link.
Let’s keep going.
The purses. This bitch is so into purses. Men, please listen up. Any girl who obsesses this much over purses at this price level is wasting your time. There will always be some new, fancier, more expensive purse she needs to have – and don’t think it ends there. If $1000 purses don’t keep her appeased, she’ll be trading you like yesterday’s Louis in no time. And if she’s spending all her time making lists for you with links to all the places you can find such purses, guess what she’s not doing? Yeah that’s right big guy. You’ll have to figure out how to make that thing throw up all by yourself.
I had to check the price on the Cartier Love Bracelet. While Cartier won’t give you prices, it does appear it is $6200 according to other websites. Yowsers. Honey, I know you’re living in a bubble…a purse and Cartier filled bubble with your noise canceling ear phones on, but we’re in a recession. R E C E S S I O N. Do you know how many people will claim less than $6200 in income this year on their taxes? Probably one for each perfectly coiffed hair on your head.
Last part of the list.
My dog and I are currently sharing a chenille blankie that set me back $29. I’m warm though. I wonder how much warmer I would be if I were under the fancy Hermes Orange blanket. Would I be $1096 warmer? I dunno.
All right. So we have a plan laid out in front of us. If 150 of us can each contribute a dollar to this poor thing, we can buy her the Smythson Passport Cover.
Who’s with me?
The notable thing here is what is on the list.
It is an unsettling glimpse into the true mindset of woman.
The items on the list all have one thing in common: their only usefulness to her is in ego-stroking, making her friends jealous, or posing like something she’s not.
The fact that women think this way is the sole reason that the fashion and luxury industries exist.
I find it disgusting that women put this much thought into how to make their materialistic girlfriends jealous, at the expense of the man they are claiming to love.
To be sure, if any many dared to make a list like this for his wife, the items on it would be useful and practical, not whimsical and ridiculous.
What a poser she is. Men, take note, this is what you are getting yourselves into if you mess with the modern american woman.
I’m woefully behind in responding. Sorry.
Julie – I think it’s less about the things she’s asking for in terms of being luxury goods as it is about the sheer number of items on the list, and the fact that he researched nearly all of them. He’s either shopping around or trying to figure out where to put the most bang for his buck. Would you go through a page and a half list and research all of them? I wouldn’t. I’d look at 3 or 4, and pull the trigger on one of them.
Brad – Well the screwdriver makes it all worth it! I can never find one of those when I need it! I didn’t see a price at all on Cartier’s site so I googled. There was an ebay version for $200 and another online retailer at $6200.
Anonymous – Well, I pity the wives/girlfriends who ask for these things. And I never said she isn’t sucking it enough, I said she isn’t sucking it at all.
MIZZ – omg, you MUST be my friend. THANK YOU!
bdb – Also, thank you. A good point indeed.
Hammer – OMG HELLO!!! Phil can discuss with him the fine art of a Kenny Rogers CD for bringing back the romance.
Namaste – I feel bad for the guy. The fact that he researched all of the items (except as noted, the LOVE bracelet) I feel like he’s one of those guys who is told he’s “wrong” all the time, so he’s trying really hard.
DaveW – Thanks for the tipoff. I had no clue this made it to the other side of the pond.
Jaimee – I think CT Girl answers below…
Bob – I KNOW! Scouring around for Free shipping is, well, something I would do, but my list doesn’t look like this.
CT Girl – I think anyone who drives in, does so at 5 a.m. too.
Dee – It might be over $20,000.
Forever Hippie – Your list can be repackaged into a New Years Resolution list too. I try to make resolutions in the same vein of what you describe, as in “This year I’m going to be the bigger person.” It was sadly followed up the following year with “I’ll be the bigger person, but I will still call someone out for being an asshole.” Re: your son. When I took a trip cross-country for 6 months and had sold everything and only packed the car with what was left, when I got back, I realized how accustomed I had become to not having that much stuff. What little I left in storage I actually wanted to pitch out. It’s liberating.
Egbert – me as well.
Betty Sue – Awesome!
Michael – my answer for you is too long, so it will appear on the next comment.
Big Dog – Well, we aren’t all like that. I’m notoriously crafty at saving money at almost every juncture, to the point where my husband is sick to death of the coupons I pull out of my pockets. But I agree, girls like this do give the rest of us a bad name.
Michael:
You are mistaking tongue-in-cheek sarcasm for obnoxious hypocrisy. Calling me a hypocrite means you would actually know that I have a list and it has items on it. I’ll indulge you. I’m going to share with you, my Dream List for this year, as told to my husband and one of my closest friends:
1) I want my parents to be healthy (last Christmas was a beast, and this year alone two of my dearest friends lost a parent and my ex-boyfriend’s mother has just found out she has a brain tumor that has metastasized.)
2) I want my dogs to be healthy
3) I’d like the 2011 Real Estate Market to recover
I contribute, as much as I am financially able, to animal rescue groups who do amazing work and who saved my dogs from being euthanized because we live in a world where people want full breed dogs and go to breeders to buy them. When I give money to people, I do so directly: money or dinner to a homeless person on my street who I know, helping a friend who is short on cash, overtipping all waiters and waitresses when I eat in a restaurant because I slaved away waiting tables for 12 years and know what it’s like, and giving my friend the one thing he wants for Christmas because he has no family who will do this for him and because he enriches the lives of my dogs almost every single day of the year. So that’s how I’m not a hypocrite.
Don’t anonymously come on to my website to call my integrity or morality into question because it is a surely a losing battle.
I think he priced everything out because he either could afford it and was serious about getting something, or he just wanted the entertainment of seeing the scope of her “dream” list. Maybe some of both.
As for Chanel… it may not be as trendy Nars, MAC or Urban Decay, but hey, Nicole Kidman uses it! My feeling about her age is like 24. Young enough to want a bicycle, but working and wearing Chanel.
Oh, jesusjosephandmary, THANK GOD YOU FOUND MY LIST.
Shit, I’ve had my boyfriend retrace his steps at least ten times since he lost it.
Seriously, this was the last straw. He took me to a place that didn’t have cloth napkins last night. Can you imagine the nerve of that sumbitch?
Please send it back to him. He really needs extra time to pick up a few of those bags. A few are hot items this season and little children in Europe aren’t going to have time to finish making them if he doesn’t order them today.
Bless you for knowing that I have good taste. I really think I like you. Also, are you single?
Wow, what a hilarious list. Awesome post. Discount decorative classics…I’m speechless.
But I don’t get why people think he shouldn’t spend this money in a recession. What we do want in a recession is for the rich to part with their money and hope it (eventually) goes to the poor. Economics-wise, we want them to spend money, go dining, tip waiters, buy stuff, employing sales associates, and pay fat sales taxes, instead of locking it up in their likely astronomic bank accounts or foreign investments.
I mean, yeah, it’s trickle down (and I mean teeny-tiny TRICKLE-down), so it would be much better if he had donated $700 to some reading program for underserved kids, but it’s still probably better that he spent it then kept it, the way our economy is set up.
They say a fool and his money is soon parted. Well, let’s part this money from this fool…
–Jenny
Eh. I’m all shrugs, here. Yeah, it would be nice if she asked for all her presents to be donations to charity or something, but, I’ll be honest: If I had that kind of money, I’d buy nice things, too.
What’s the point of judging people you don’t even know? Does it make you feel morally superior? Why not just spend your time doing a good deed, yourself, this Christmas season?
Why is it so horrible to make a “Dream List” of things you’d like and to have someone actually think about getting at least some of it for you?
Why would it be so horrible if her boyfriend/wife/great aunt Matilda went out and bought all of it for her?
Way to be a judgmental bish. Having money and spending it is not a crime.
Siryn – 24 ish b/c of the words like “sparkly”? Is that the giveaway? Ha ha.
Elizabeth – Very funny! Sorry about those scratchy napkins. How dare he?
Jenny – He / they can do what they want with their money. As I said earlier, I personally could never spend that much money on that sort of “stuff.” However, I think that the other part of this is that as we’ve learned, a ton of these bajillionaires didn’t really have any money at all. A few months out of work, or with reduced bonuses and they were all crying poor. It seems irresponsible in this day and age, as we’re having the worst economic crisis ever. Though, to counter that, even when times are good, I can’t get behind this sort of spending. I’m a stick it in the bank type.
Ayesha and Kate – Sigh. I want so desperately to answer you in full, however, we have officially beat this to death. See the 105 comments above you? We’ve been round and round with this. This is supposed to be funny. Humorous. Comedy. Tongue in cheek sarcasm. Lighten up. If it’s not funny to you, then I’m not the writer for you to be reading. Find something else because you clearly missed the point with this one.
I find the responses to this very interesting. Why is everyone assuming this is a whiny girlfriend of some poor chump?
For all we know, she could be buying him a Lamborghini for Christmas. I could very easily imagine my boss (yes, my boss a highly intelligent and accomplished woman of 51) making a Christmas list like this for her husband (yes, husband). But for Christmas she also bought him a $24,000 trip to paradise (I know, because I saw the credit card bill). These two could easily be married. The closeness of their relationship is alluded to by her asking for makeup she doesn’t already have, regardless of the fact that he doesn’t actually know.
And presumably the woman (probably not girl) who made her wish list has some idea of what her boyfriend/husband can afford. If she’s dating someone who shops at Bell’s and they go out for dinner at Kelsey’s, then it’s unlikely she’d be asking for these items.
Lastly, there are plenty of wealthy men who expect their girlfriends/wives to have all the latest, because these women act in part as markers of their own success. I personally am a very frugal person but have had relationships with men in this realm. I always thought they’d be impressed by my lack of pretension along with my frugality, but believe me that is not the case. My bargain $30 handbag or $80 shoes do not reflect well on these men, even if I think they’re perfectly fine.
Not so much “sparkly,” but “fancy hair products.” I feel like that Microsoft commercial for the Windows Phone… “Really??!”
My boyfriend bought me some makeup for Christmas, an Estee Lauder gift set. It’s not my brand (Nars), but God bless him, it was a thoughtful gift, because he’s seen the size of my makeup bag. And I will use what I can of it, happily, because he tried. I don’t expect him to rummage around in my makeup bag and figure out what colors I would like.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Aint America great – we all strive for the American dream – and then tear down folks who appear to be living it !
Why do the majority of you care? – Why the strong reaction to this???
How do you know that she hadn’t bought a flock of goats at World Vision? I’ll bet her household paid more tax than most on this thread.
The scary part in this thread is the politics of envy from the bloggers and the commentators. The people commenting are much more scary than the rather mundane couple whose privacy has been violated.
Thanks for stopping by! Glad we could entertain you.
Just sorry we couldn’t raise enough dough to get this poor girl her dream Chri$tmas.
And why so many people taking this so seriously? Good lord. Poking fun at those less fortunate then you is The American Dream.
Oh. Wait.
Oops.
Dream lists and aspirations are different in the Great White North.
The Canadian dream is about fulfillment and life’s experiences. It’s about family, diversity, education and travel.
We have done the American dream – 7 years in the upscale burbs with the picket fences keeping up with the Joneses.
I am really surprised at the strong reactions to this list! Times must have changed in the States. Most of the housewives we knew in Orange County, Westchester, and Mercer Island, could have penned a comparable list!
Merry Christmas
Misha – Good points in all, my assumption based on his notes though were that he was desperately trying to please her. If he were the busy wheeler dealer he would need to be to pay for this, he would have researched 2 or 3, and made a choice. Instead, he went looking at almost every item. It’s a lot of work he did.
Siryn – Aww! I love hearing there is a thoughtful boyfriend in your life!! Finally you get some happiness you have waited a long time for. I’m really happy for you.
Matt- the privacy issue has been addressed in other places, but if you leave something behind in a public place, it’s now public. I wouldn’t leave the keys to a Jaguar or the combo to Donald Trump’s safe laying around then pounce on someone who uses it citing breach of privacy. In the case where celebrity sex tapes were obtained by breaking into a house, i.e. Pam and Tommy Lee, their privacy was breached WHEN the house was broken into and a crime committed. This is far different.
Dead Cow Girl – I just read your post today. OMG! Wow! Had to open the door to cool my cheeks down you naughty girl. 🙂 And I don’t know why people are taking it so seriously. It’s all pretty funny to me. But like I say to my friends, “I’m an asshole. I make fun of everything.”
Matt – Times HAVE changed, and I think that’s why the reaction was so swift to this list. People are wondering where the hell the other people are who can make lists like this, when the rest of the country (world) is living paycheck to paycheck, if they even have a paycheck at all. You may have found this from the CBC, for who I did an interview and a blog post was written. As I said on that interview, we just watched all these Wall Street guys live high and large, for many many years, only to find that the banks all folded like houses of cards because the guys had, and I’d like to scream this NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THEY WERE DOING. So then we had to watch the government bail them out, one by one, and they still took bonuses. Do we know this couple is one and the same? No. But we assume that since he is in finance, that we’re just gearing up for the next bubble again and they’re going to help us get there.
I keep saying this but some people seem to not listen to it: It is their business to do what they want with their money. It’s no longer their business when they rack up debt and file bankruptcy or go into short sale / foreclosure and have to be bailed out. Since there are very few people living high and large anymore and times are so so so tough, it’s almost unconscionable that there are people out there who have missed the point of this whole recession / bubble we’re enduring.
Well written, I enjoy the way you mercilessly rip apart this “bitch” who spends more on one handbag than I make in an entire year! Excellent!
Gosh and golly, I’m excited to find so many other people engaged in decoding other people’s lists. Among my primary activities is collecting, sifting through, and re-presenting these manifestations of other people’s intentions and priorities.
Though I tend to be most engaged by lists that, on the surface, seem far more mundane than the holiday wish list that has sparked such an outpouring of commentary, I thought I’d share a rather extraordinary specimen sent to me anonymously through a project I undertook called “Checking It Twice,” which involved the solicitation of cast-off grocery and other “to do” lists and an exhibition of list-based artworks at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, which struggles to keep its doors open in this financial climate.
Though I received close to a thousand lists in the donation envelopes through which I bartered list-related temporary tattoos for discarded lists, one that stood out as warranting the kind of laborious process I apply to choice selections from my collection might interest some of the people on this thread who have lamented various aspects of the unnamed “dream” list maker.
(It begins with the doubly underscored heading of “living w/in means.”)
If it’s appropriate to offer in this context, here’s a link to the inlaid burnishing clay panel I made based on this list: http://adrianeherman.typepad.com/photos/inlaid_burnishing_clay/f-1.html
Though this is a re-production at a monumentalizing scale (400%), I do try to translate the original artifact faithfully, so you can get a pretty good sense of the original list. I’m not sure which I find more poignant: the fact that the writer puts things like “buy smaller / build smaller,” “create community,” and “*earn the resources to finish house + pay off debt” on a “to do” list, or that he or she took the time to mail me this list, presumably after all these big picture items had been taken care of. (And if that’s the case, I’m pretty impressed…)
As I meticulously carved the last line on the list and then spent many hours sanding and burnishing the surface, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason I had not managed to pay off my debt was that I hadn’t put it on my “to do” list. Here’s another list that reminds us perhaps we need to put all the things we want to do on our “to do” lists: http://adrianeherman.typepad.com/photos/inlaid_burnishing_clay/g.html
I’d be delighted to send self-addressed stamped envelopes to anyone who has [hand-written] lists you’d like to offer for use in my ongoing project. (You can email me from the above-mentioned site.) As someone noted earlier in this thread, hand-written or hand-annotated lists grow increasingly rare as electronic devices increasingly supplant pen/cil and paper, and I believe that evidence of how we spend the resources of time, energy and money is worthy of archiving, study and reflection.
Cheers!
Velvet, first of all, your post is hilarious! Really really funny! My second level of thinking is that this list and person is shallow and that is both sad and irritating.
Thirdly, I am sorry everyone has hijacked your thread to discuss commercialism, Christmas, giving,desiring,needs, wants, etc….but fourthly,no, I am not really sorry, it is a cool thing that you were able to provide the starting point to let others really discuss some important topics.
What can I add that has not already been said? I don’t believe that we need this kind of “luxury” spending to keep the economy healthy. There are plenty of other “needs” we could support instead of “wants”. (My personal opinion is that overall it is too bad that we want luxury goods when there are people and animals with not enough to eat, not enough hope to dream at all, of anything. People afraid of the sound of a plane overhead, children who only see pain and hurt, therefore cannot learn of love in any way. Like someone above said….really I am a hypocrite to feel that way, yet continue live a lower/middle-class life…what I have, that does not seem like much, is extravagant to most of the world. I have food, opportunity, safety, comfort, love, medicine, access to almost anything I “need”. Wow.)
It sounds to me like this list-maker probably has “friends” that need to be impressed for her to feel good about herself. Possibly she has never learned how to love, because maybe she was never shown love. We could argue all day about someone like this being able to know better and “choosing” to be so selfish, but I’ll bet she had no one in her life that said: “I love you for you, no matter what.” (and meant it). A child can be neglected and unloved in a rich house the same as in a poor house. And the broken kids growing up in the rich house probably have a better shot at wielding power in the future, so are more likely to affect us negatively. Maybe we should invest educational dollars in teaching self esteem to the rich preschoolers! (okay that was a joke. I think.) Anyway, this person needs the LOVE not the bracelet. She just does not know it.
R P – Thanks!
List Lover – I dated a man once who made a mysterious list that you would have loved. Too bad I didn’t take it. But he was in the shower, and would have known it was me. the list was itemized 1 through 7, and 4 of the items were women’s names (none were me) and the other three were things like “television” and “scuba” or something that you wouldn’t expect to find on such a list. Then, as with this post, it was his notes that threw me off. Next to each item, he had renumbered and starred certain things. TV was first. The other girls were all after the TV. Very odd. I should have asked.
Elaine – Well said! I don’t mind the comments being hijacked, as long as people actually read the post and then the corresponding comments. Plenty of people who didn’t read what had already transpired were commenting on things that were erroneous. I felt at the end there like I was repeating myself over and over to people.
And you’re right, there are other ways to support an economy besides buying high-end luxury goods. Tons of other ways. I was more so just generally making fun of the girl with this over-the-top list, and felt sorry for the guy, and felt sorry for the rest of the girls who have to deal with damaged men who once had a girlfriend like this. After all, this is my focus. I write/wrote a dating and relationship blog, and I’m a sarcastic asshole who makes fun of everyone. But then people (on this site, and on the others where the post was featured) were going down the road of questioning why and how she was choosing to spend the money. It’s secondary to what I originally intended to focus on, but definitely worth the analysis.
I only have a taste for luxury goods when I can get them at an incredible steal. Like paying $68 for a $395 Kate Spade bag. Yeahhhhhh! If someone bought me that stuff at full price, I’d cry. The thrill is in the deal for me.
I love this entry! Fantastic find and write up. It’s totally asking for this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKLuSZifDKg
Might have been from madoff’s wife!
HOLY WOW!!!
We currently live in NYC, so I have seen some, uh, extravagance as of late, but apparently the burbs are REALLY where it’s at!
This girl needs to get her ass to a homeless shelter to volunteer for a day.
Merry Christmas to YOU, lady!
Do you know what my 3-year-old CHILD asked for from Santa for Christmas?
A game.
I should find her and charge her so that my child can give her some therapy (no more of the retail kind!) and teach her about limits and priorities in life!
And in all seriousness, my husband couldn’t afford to buy me all that stuff (except maybe that passport cover we are all getting her) but he sure as hell would never correct my writing if I wasn’t asking him to do so!
Yikes.
I will take my hubby, thanks!
What’s with the “laughing all the way to the bank” comments? Like, to deposit her Hermes blanket and La Creuset saucepan into a safe deposit box?