To whom it may concern,

Please explain to me the following:

 Vera Bradley bags

Really? They look like grandma's old tablecloth, and not the kitchy cool kind. Or they look like the ugly old drapes that Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp used to make play clothes for the kids so they could traipse all over Austria and not worry that they'd dirty anything worthwhile. Or they look like a bad retro Hollie Hobby moment... or Little House on the Prairie to-go. Eventually they look like a diaper bag carried by a woman with six kids. A woman who doesn't want to get a new diaper bag because she's hoping she doesn't have another sprog.

Ugg Boots

Really? No. Just no! They are ubiquitous, and this isn't a good thing. A good ubiquitous thing would be a good book under everyone's arm, not some yak tubes that serve as footwear . Aren't we evolved? Remember those thousands-of-years-old people they've dug up? They're wearing Uggs! They're wearing animal skin tubes! Are we going to wear grass clothes too now? Oh... wait... is that what hemp is about? Damn. And I thought it was all about legalizing marijuana. Anyway, Uggs are clunky, frumpy and as trendy as the hideous "jelly" shoes. If you must wear Uggs (because, I don't know, someone will give you a million dollars if you wear ugly clothes for a winter) glue fake claws on them and walk like the abominable snowwoman.

Tight Stretchy Shirts

I'm going to be the bitch who says it. Buy a full length mirror. You might not be ashamed of your body, which is good. But you might want to know what's squishing where. Just buy the mirror.

Straight Hair, Perfect Teeth, and Tanning Booth Skin

There's a hubbard squash in my kitchen that looks like the pod from which the orange-skinned, perfect-toothed, straight-haired female springs. I'm getting concerned that we're going to be overrun by a population of young women who don't have any individual characteristics other than the noses they want to "fix." I know that orthodontia has become some kind of birthright here in the U.S., but I find the perfect grimmace disturbing. Along with the orange skin and straight hair, I'm afraid that I might be eaten by a gang of these young women. Come to think of it, they do kind of remind me of a grown up version of those cute little aliens from Galaxy Quest...