Being Ooh La-La

Last year my friend Darek was wearing a clean white T-shirt when a bump caused him to spill a bit of his Orange Crush on it. He looked down, and disappointingly exclaimed “Oh No, now I’m white trash!”

Over my lunch hour today I had to return something to Ikea and I decided to stop at Sherway Mall on the way back. If this was the States, Sherway would definitely be the “white people mall”. It was a veritable WASP’s nest; no discounts, no bargains, no fashion faux-pas, just seas of Mrs. Havishams and undiscovered catalogue models with no afternoon obligations and seemingly bottomless pools of disposable income.

I am walking around in what would normally pass as business casual but in the presence of the social elite I am suddenly painfully aware that I dress like shit. It’s funny how we tend to juxtapose ourselves without even being aware of it. This was only exacerbated by the Abercrombie & Fitch store. The staff resembled the cast of Laguna Beach and the customers ranged from tall attractive businessmen to tall attractive surfer types; and there at the entrance against the exact same backdrop you see above, was the live-in-the-flesh model on the left, just kinda hanging-out….shirtless.

People gawked, teenage girls giggled and took pictures with their friends, and the staff who may as well have been in black & white themselves smiled politely as I awkwardly fingered some random item of clothing while pretending not to look. (turns out it appeared I was showing a keen interest in a lovely little camisole).

I once told Darek as we passed a red-carpet party downtown that one day I wanted to know what it was like to be “oh la-la”, and here I was in the oh la-la central office and all I could feel was out of place. I’m sure if we could freeze that moment I would stick out; among the hunks and potential starlets, the low-riders and the high heels would be me, standing in womens’ summer wear, sneaking a peak at the living mannequin, wishing I hadn’t bought that orange pop.