Did you see what she is wearing? Omigod, I can’t believe he just said that! Admit it, we all pass judgments on others for the silliest of things-their outfits, their musical preferences, whatever. It’s human nature. There is a bit of snob in each of us. In my case, however, it is more than just a bit.
I am not ashamed. Oh no. I refuse to mope about the fact that I assert superiority over others based on arbitrary measures. I will not exclaim, “Oh woe is me, I wonder how it happened.” I know exactly how it happened. I blame it on-probably the most popular scapegoat in this age of Freudian psychology-my mother.
When I was just a little wee lass-try, if you can, to imagine P Thang as just plain old “p”; I hadn’t yet developed enough ‘tude for neither the capital P nor the Thang-a friend of my mother’s told her that I was the ugliest baby she had ever seen. To add insult to injury, my grandma cried when a relative remarked that I took after her. As the woman who gave birth to such a creature, my mother panicked. Gosh darn it, she thought, if her child wasn’t going to be beautiful on the outside, she would at least be beautiful on the inside. I was a fat kid with astigmatism and crooked teeth, and the woman responsible for this aesthetic mess-imagining a bleak future as the object of much taunting-decided that she had to make it up to me somehow. And so Project Inner Beauty began. Its end result? A fat kid with glasses, braces, and an “I rule the world” attitude.
I am a culture snob. I was probably the first four-year-old to sit in the front row of Swan Lake. I also had the distinction of being the only one to fall asleep within the first half hour. Today, I scoff at reality television and The OC. I am going to the Nutcracker in two weeks.
I am a food snob. Junk food was unheard of. I craved preservatives and artificial colouring. At school, no one ever wanted to trade lunches. No matter how you look at it, mortadella on 12-grain is no match for PB&J on white in the eyes of an eight-year-old. Today, I turn up my nose at Snickers and snack on dark chocolate-covered orange peels instead.
I am a fashion snob. Back in the day, I would have given up all my 100 per cent natural fruit leathers-Fruit Roll-Ups had far too much sugar-for my mom to dress like other moms. I prayed for the day she would slip on a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. But, as I learned the hard way, Jiminy Cricket is a filthy liar. My mother’s favourite outfit was a silver, leopard print, velour thing. She passed her finely honed fashionista instincts onto me. Her motto was “dare to be different” and her child was no exception. I was denied jeans; rather, my mother believed in colour-coordinated outfits. She thought that by dressing me well, attention may be taken off my less-than-attractive visage. Today, I am petrified of the Gap. Their ads terrify me, especially the “Everybody in” campaign and the “Fall into the Gap” slogan from a few years back. I am scared of being one of the everybodys in corduroy; and, please, for those who like it, do me a favour: fall into the Gap and never come out.
Yes, I am a snob. But I embrace it, and so should you. So long as you can trace your snobbism back to an appropriate scapegoat, no one will think any less of you.
