Pee Ell You. Not.

I am patiently waiting for this whole yoga-compost trend to be over.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against compost or yoga; pitching watermelon rinds straight out the kitchen window into the garden is my idea of a good time, and I have no issue at all with stretchy fold-over yoga pants - what's not to love about an all- elastic waist? but frankly, it bugs me when the counterculture shit that I co-opted for years suddenly becomes mainstream. I don't like it one bit.

In my day, hippies were hippies and The Man was The Man. And nobody fucked with that.

Nowadays, the lines are all hazy and shit and where does it end? Neo-Nazis ending their meetings with a namaste circle? Turning the heat up for super calorie-burning Hot Nazi meetings?

I stood in line next to a guy at the nursery a few weeks ago. He was around my age. He was eating a Kashi bar. It wasn't a big leap for me to presume him to be PLU* - in my world, if you smell like Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castille Soap and you are wearing Tevas with socks, I feel fully confident that I know more than a few things about you. I struck up a conversation with him, which wasn't easy since I am a total poseur gardener. In fact, I was only at the nursery because I wanted some rubber clogs to wear at the dog park. Not gardening makes me a sort of pariah around these parts so I make sure I can finesse my way through a basic chat. I throw around words like variegated leaves, I spritz a little fish emulsion behind my ears, I flash a little cleavage and I get by. 

People are so outdoorsy here in Oregon; you gotta do what you gotta do to fit in.

So there I was, feeling the love with Kashi man; we were both grooving to the music on the radio behind the counter, sharing an "I'd like to give the world a Coke" moment, and then he pays for his organic mulch (a total PLU thing to buy), he takes a swig from his non-BPA water bottle (check), and....he walks to his car. A Volvo sedan (the quintessential PLU ride). With a bumper sticker that reads: No Fat Chicks.

Unbefuckinglievable, right?  Talk about your tramp stamp on a soccer mom.

This is - in the parlance of parents and preschool teachers everywhere - UNACCEPTABLE. You are either PLU, which means you are cool and know what "420" means, or you are PNLU and think that Bristol Palin getting $15,000 for speaking engagements is not the 9th sign of the Apocalypse.

Here are the new rules:

Drive a Volvo?  Then you have to have a no-flushing pee policy at home. If it's yellow, leave it mellow.

Wear Tevas with socks? Then you had to have breastfed your babies for three years, minimum.

If you know the guitar chords to any Leonard Cohen songs, you better be a Democrat. Or clinically depressed.

Don't be wearing tie-dye or making tofu cheesecake or naming your dog "Che" or smudging sage through your house if the most political thing you've ever done is send in your Yoplait lids for cancer research.

You wanna fly your freak flag fly higher than mine? Get back to me after you've made placenta soup.

Yeah, you heard me. Placenta soup.

*PLU: a term Robin and I use, meaning, People Like Us.  Shorthand for, when these people come over, we don't have to hide the "Lick Dick and Bush" campaign buttons on the coffee table.

Comments

[Claudia]

Oh my dear, dear, dear Ann. This Volvo driving man is more PLU than YOU. The group name he has on his bumper sticker is the name of a group that is about body acceptance and means NONE of us are fat. It comes from a book called No Fat Chicks: How Big Business Profits By Making Women Hate Their bodies – And How To Fight Back. It's the newest hip and cool group and, no, I'm not kidding. There is even a chapter in Cincinnati.

[Babara]

Now I LOVE this man. Thank you Claudia, for setting the record straight. Geez Ann, you are so last year.

[annie]

I need to get out more. And maybe I should buy some patchouli.

[Susan]

I laughed so hard my kombucha tea came out my nose!

[yochi]

there is no one like you...

jenchi

[satya]

lol i say ... plu lol

[Wendy]

I can't even call it laughing outloud --- I can't roar so I make little spurty sounds & wiggle in my chair & snort & then I miss then next few words due to squeezy tear-y eyes.
I hope Sarah Blakeslee saw this about Leonard Cohen.
p.s. her Dad, Dick BLakeslee is the actual author of the folk-song (so we thought) Passing through. Believe it. It's on my page & I'm a librarian so I know about "authoritative" when it comes to information.

[Jane]

I was with you till the placenta soup. I thought we were supposed to put it in the freezer and eat it on our first anniversary.

[Niamh]

OK - even if this man is a fan of "No Fat Chicks" - the cutting edge body acceptance group, don't you think the bumper sticker is a mistake? Like, really? It's not like it was the secretly cool: "Know Fat Chicks." I'm SO down on Mr. Volvo-driving-man.

And I even did a google search for "No Fat Chicks" bumper stickers, and I came up with some on Amazon! And the first one I looked at even had a 5-star "customer review." I quote it forthwith: "At first, all of these fat girls were trying to get me to hangout with them, and when i put this on my truck, voila! no more fatties!" (and his name was "M. Joy "BigDikk").

On that horrifying note, I'm signing off. :-)

[Irene Dawn]

Hmm, I resemble these remarks. Leonard Cohen, breastfeeding for more years than I care to admit, and yoga..well, I was a fervent yogini for a few years, till I hurt my hip doing all those damn hip-opening poses. The best thing is now I wear those great yoga pants from Lululemon and can pretend I'm on my way to or just back from a class. the thing about bumper stickers, I hate them. Always To Much Information about the person in the car.

[Claudia]

Niamh, I looked up the bumper stickers and I think you're right. How horrifying and here I was thinking he meant NO FAT CHICKS in a NICE way. That man in the Volvo -- even if he's nursed his young AND eaten placenta soup -- is most definitely NOT PLU from the comments on that bumper sticker site.