Manolo the Columnist: Pansy from Yellow Box
Manolo says, here is the Manolo’s latest column for the Express of the Washington Post.
Dear Manolo,
In August, I have some free time before I begin graduate school. A friend has invited me to spend part of it at her family vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. We’ll mostly be at the beach, but I’ll still need some sandals to glam it up a bit for when we go out at night. What do you suggest?
Beth
Manolo says, from the Vineyard of Martha straight into the graduate school? It is like going from the disco directly into the nunnery, only with out the spiritual uplifting.
One minute you are partying down with the beautiful rich peoples, and the next you are the lowly drudge responsible for teaching Introduction to Composition 101 to semi-literate techno-primitives, whose only previous experience with writing has been thumbing out cryptic phrases such as “were u @, bro?”
On the first day, you will stand at the front of your class, filled with enthusiasm, determined to share the mysteries of the five-paragraph essay. By the end of the second week, you will settle for having them consistently indent new paragraphs.
This is to say nothing of the various travails of the graduate student, many of which involve 4 AM trips to the all night copy shop and the ramen noodles, lots of ramen noodles.
By Thanksgiving, you will look back on your brief stay on the Vineyard as being the Golden Age of Innocence, when you could wear sandals such as these, the Pansy from Yellow Box, without getting the dirty looks from the members of the Marxist Ladies Auxiliary Discussion Group.
“were u @, bro?”
BAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
Why does the Manolo frequently focus on the humanities/social sciences in his academic vignettes? While I find the references highly amusing, there is a wealth of material to be found in the eccentricities of the STEMologists.
P.S. I just remembered last week’s column involved Chemistry! So alternating.
Those are beautiful sandals, and now that I am both raking in the dough and sweltering, I might just pick them up. The ‘Knife could use some swag.
Come, now, Manolo. I am a Marxist, and can assure you that it should be ‘Marxist Women’s Committee/ Feminist fraction’, as ‘lady’ is a bourgeois term and ‘auxiliary’ pertains more to the more traditional women’s activities :-)
Wouldn’t it be “Womyn’s?” :)
Funny thing about that style of sandal, the first time I bought some I thought to myself that my feet looked uncommonly naked in them, so I had to go put on nail varnish. Then I bought another pair just because I was wearing new shoes that hurt and I couldn’t bear to walk another step in them, and when I got back to work a male colleague/friend told me they made me look as though I had no knickers on. So I was right; they are very naked looking sandals. It’s very strange.
There is not enough patent leather in those sandals to reflect up.
Although I’m suspecting your male colleague wasn’t thinking that much about your sandals really …
“By the end of the second week, you will settle for having them consistently indent new paragraphs.”
*gasp* How did the Manolo know that is EXACTLY how my recent course went?! The Manolo, he knows all, he sees all!