Strangers

You know, folks, I realized on my way in to work this morning... you can't really offer total strangers helpful suggestions or constructive criticism. Very rarely will they ever appreciate it. You can't say to that businessman who thinks he's well-dressed, "What were you thinking... brown shoes with a blue suit!?" Women in ponchos will never be grateful when you point out that ponchos are so last season. And no one ever takes a total stranger's advice to heart when you suggest alternative hairstyles that would be more flattering to bone structure.

I mean, let's face it. You see these mistakes daily. Whether it's a ponytail on a woman of a certain age or a gentleman desperately clinging to those long wisps of hair trailing over a bald spot the size of Lake Okeechobee. Heck, forget strangers. Sometimes you can't even say these things to a coworker who wears a plastic red flower in her hair. I guess, we all, in these situations, have to take in a deep sigh of disbelief and just take comfort in the fact that the mistakes of others make us look all that much better.

Keep your thoughts to yourself. Or even better, share them with your friends. Give the offenders fun and humorous nicknames to remember fondly the vision of their freakishness. Or better yet, you can blog about it!

Honey, you're a little too big to wear purple from head to toe. You look like Barney.
Sweetie, [note: I find starting off these comments with an endearing moniker soothes the shock], Sweetie, seriously, don't you think you're a little too tall of a girl to try pulling off that smarmy little bob of a haircut? You look like Emo Philips in drag.
Cookie-kins, there's a right way to wear eye make-up, and there's a wrong way. Can you guess why I'm pointing that out to you?
Poodle, and I call you that because of your hair, poodle, have you ever heard of conditioner? Just a dime size portion does wonders.
Dude, seriously, unless you're an art director, trying to pull off a ponytail with your male pattern baldness makes it look like that rubberband is pulling the hair right out of your head. You're half bald: deal with it, and cut that hair!
Pumpkin, seriously, orange shoes? With sparklies?!?

See now, some people say I'm a b*tch. But I say, my mom told me to do what I'm good at. And I'm really good at being a b*tch, so really, you can't blame me -- you have to blame her!