My teenaged daughter appears to have fallen in with a clique of young women who specialize in finding stupid things to do with money. If she's not hanging out with the various lampreys and leeches that swim among her bio-family, she's trying to pull a big-hat-no-cattle act. It's because she spent so much of her early life in the entitlement class; her taste consumption-wise is far ahead of her productivity level. So far she's not aware of how ridiculous she looks, and she can't fathom why I laugh my head off at stupid financial things, such as the unsolicited flyer suggesting I trade the Toaster, barely broken in with 95,000 miles on it, toward some ridiculous vehicle valued at $40,000+.
She's going through a bit of a phase where she's living the stereotype with regard to being excessively American, excessively female, and excessively teenager. As part of the combined stereotype, she's constantly got her hand out wheedling for money for some new random luxury. Occasionally she'll even get off her ass and do chores in exchange for money. That's when I know she really means what's coming out of her mouth and it's not just one more ploy to gouge something out of me in order to treat someone else.
Anyway, most of the girls in this clique have jobs and therefore earn incomes. Most of them accordingly pay at least some of their own expenses, particularly in the nice-to-have department. Yet the trend is to find even more idiotic and overpriced beauty treatments. Here's the latest voyage to Stupidville: eyelash perms.
http://www.today.com/style/eyelash-perms-bigger-brighter-eyes-no-makeup-required-t74201
That's right: caustic chemicals up close and personal, right next to the eyes, for $50 per treatment and worst of all
this is supposed to be a tipping situation. This is a new low in the beauty industry, which specializes in selling expensive glop to correct problems caused by other expensive glop, in order to make the wearer feel less inadequate.
"But it lasts three months!" My daughter tried to justify her desire for this treatment.
"The blindness? I'd think it would last longer than that."
"No, the curl. I wouldn't have to use mascara or an eyelash curler." She hates the angle of her eyelashes.
"How much time does it take you to curl your eyelashes each day? A minute or so?"
"Why does that matter?"
"Because if it lasts three months you're saving yourself maybe an hour and a half of time if you spend one minute a day dicking with your eyelashes. If you spend two minutes a day, it's maybe three hours you save. But you want to spend the better part of an hour in a salon, drive half an hour to the mall and half an hour back burning a full gallon of gas, and that saves you... what, maybe an hour total?"
"Yeah."
"So to save one hour you're willing to spend fifty bucks, plus gas, plus tax, plus tip. Is there anything that you're qualified to do that's worth sixty dollars in an hour? Dispense prescriptions, design a nuclear weapon, fix a computer virus, anything?"
"Well--"
"I should say, any LEGAL way to earn--"
"No."
"Which, coincidentally, is also my answer to the question about whether I'll give you money to have your lashes permed."
She hates me. She really, truly, honestly does.