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From our local overclass snoburb's high school listserv:
* a tragic event, yet an awesome opportunity to lend gravitas to my ECs on my college applications
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It's a sunny afternoon in snoburbia, and there is only one place to be: at the car wash. (Who knew?) But not just any car wash. People from all over Potomac, Bethesda and Chevy Chase make the trek to the nice car wash, the Flagship car wash on Rockville Pike. It is hopping with Lexuses (Lexi?), Mercedes, BMWs - oh, and my dented, nondescript, 8-year-old minivan.
I've only started washing my car regularly because I now have a snoburbia - t-shirts for the overclass magnet on the back, and I thought it would look suspect on a salt-covered, dusty van.
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Back in 2002, on the first day of the Washington sniper attacks (which terrorized all of us for weeks,) it was reported that a woman in my model of minivan was killed at a gas station a few blocks from my house. Hearing this, my brother-in-law was at first alarmed, but then realized it couldn't possibly have been me: The woman had been vacuuming out her car.
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I was listening to Car Talk on NPR yesterday, and I heard a segment from a caller who certainly was from snoburbia. Here were the clues:
1. She was a super-confident, articulate 15-year-old girl.
2. She was talking about her mom's BMW that she was about to inherit.
3. She was from Connecticut.
But the dead giveaway was when she mentioned her pets' names: "Sartre" and "Nietzsche."
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If you live in the overclass snoburbs of Washington, D.C., you just might be a politico (Georgetown) or a member of the media (Bethesda.) Or perhaps you are a scientist (Kensington,) a lobbyist (Potomac,) or a business leader (Great Falls.) Or you are in the defense establishment (McLean.) Or you are a lawyer (everywhere.)
Anyway - if you are a high-ranking member of any of these groups, it's very possible you will be interviewed on NPR or This Week (ABC) or in the print media. And if you are, you must use these words:
granularity
boots on the ground (or facts on the ground)
going forward
drill down
shovel-ready
game-changer
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I have lowbrow taste when it comes to groceries. I am just as happy having a bologna sandwich with those 99-cent lemon sandwich cookies for dessert (admittedly made entirely from lard.) I'm not exactly a foodie.
But the other day, I was in the mood for some bruschetta. I wanted to spread it on Wasa multi-grain crispbread, to eat along with some brie and grapes. So I went to the grocery store. I walked around the entire store - one of those newer ones the size of two football fields. Couldn't find it.
So I asked an employee where they kept the bruschetta. "What is that?" he said. He walked to a couple of places - couldn't find it. He asked another employee, who said, "What is that?" That guy also couldn't find it. Okay, now I was getting embarrassed, as if maybe I were eating above my station. But they were on a mission. They found the assistant store manager, who got on his loud, crackling radio and asked someone else, "Do you know where we keep the bruschetta?" ("What is that?" the person replied.) I was now trailing three people.
We found it near the fresh salsa. "Here you go, ma'am," said the radio guy.
Next time, I'm sticking with bologna.
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On a recent jaunt out of snoburbia, I kept seeing minivans and SUVs with cutesy stick figures on their rear windows. The stickers were almost without exception on American-made cars - thereby ensuring I'll never have to see them in my neighborhood.
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You've noticed it too: In a short time, snoburbia has been taken over - by cupcakes. Silly little cupcakes are appearing on every other brick and cobblestone block, from Georgetown to Bethesda to McLean. But these cupcakes are not your homeroom-mom, Betty Crocker variety. That just wouldn't do in the overclass snoburbs. These are $4 cupcakes, with dense, too-rich cake and yards of colorful icing.
Blame it on Carrie Bradshaw and New York's Magnolia Bakery, which, last time I was in NYC, had a line outside half a block long. Now, instead of dreaming of owning a B&B in Vermont (the dream, circa 1990) snoburban gals dream of opening a neighborhood cupcakery.
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