The In Crowd

I was waiting in line at Target the other day when I noticed they’d moved the Bumpits to the checkout aisle, which seemed a little odd to me.

I mean, that kind of product placement is in no way functional or helpful, right? It’s not as if any one of us has ever been standing in line, mentally prepared to finish off our shopping trip — thinking that everything on our list is present and accounted for — only to remember with blinding panic: “Mother of G! I forgot to get some batteries and some as-seen-on-TV plastic comb thingies to jack up my hair like I’m the second-place winner on ‘Toddlers & Tiaras!’ How will I possibly get them now? I’ll lose my place in line! Why am I always a failure who can never do anything right? I should never have been born! Oh, wait ... They have both of these things here. Nice.”

Far be it from me to interrupt today’s nicotine fits and gym-joining with my drivel, but I feel a little like a Chili’s waitress who just got told to bring some baby back ribs over to the well-known golfer at Table 4. In other words, I’m rushing to put on some lipstick, but I’m not really expecting this to turn out so great.

Likewise, while I was celebrating last night, I just couldn’t get into the New Year’s spirit — and it’s not just because those stupid 2010 glasses made me look like Harry Potter’s homely cousin, Muriel Fatface.

Some people might try to tell you that the season’s biggest spectacle involves Tiger Woods and the growing number of notches on his golf bag, but those folks clearly don’t have cable because, OMG, “Jersey Shore” is where the real fun is.

A woman of highly modern values once advised us in song, “Don’t be tardy for the party. Take the Benz out for a swirl. Drop that top. Yeah, it’s my world. Blah. Blah. Something about being rich. Blah. Blah. Something about being hot. Blah. Blah. Something about being better than everyone else.”

Like most adult children of discount shoppers, I’ve had to cope with the lingering psychological wounds of a childhood spent mostly at grocery store customer service counters, where no line was ever too long to keep my mother from getting a five-cent refund because of a mismarked box of corn flakes.

Yesterday, in a very casual yet purposeful manner, my husband announced — with little consideration for my cats’ feelings — that he wants to get a dog.

A dog.

To most normal, full-blooded suburban wives who drive SUVs, are fully vested in their 401(k)s and think puppies (and, by extension, human children) are adorable and necessary, this might be really satisfying news — which would, no doubt, be followed up with plans to put that dog in a jaunty Santa hat and add him to this year’s beach-scape Christmas card portrait.

But to my ears, his announcement sounded more like, “I want eight kids and a divorce. P.S. I’m friends with Michael Lohan now.”

It takes all kinds.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself. I don’t know how else to explain People of Walmart, a new blog devoted to showcasing the under-clad train wrecks found puzzling over Doritos options at supercenters across the nation.

Really what I mean is: It takes all kinds of restraint. It's difficult not to laugh in that pointing, judging, superior manner that I’m so good at. Truly, something’s not right with these folks, and it’s not nice to mock the disenfranchised.

When a grown man is casually yet confidently wearing a garbage bag as a skirt while shopping for Gladware in the nation’s No. 1 discount store, it’s a sign there may be problems at home.

Despite what Woody Allen and half of Hollywood’s directors are telling us to think, it is absolutely A-OK that Roman Polanski was finally caught.

I don’t care how many Oscars or stepdaughter-marrying friends you have. Or how brilliant, creative and accomplished you might be. Or what a sweetheart your village bread maker thinks you are. If one drugs and rapes a 13-year-old, then one’s subsequent life should not involve fancy chalets or crusty baguettes — that is, unless one’s prison bunkmate has just suggested some light role-playing from “The Sound of Music.”

When the Bravo network began casting for the “Real Housewives of Washington, D.C.” — the latest in a reality show franchise known for its indecorum and boobs — it needn’t have looked any farther than the congressional floor, which has plenty of both.

Throw in some grade-school insults, angry table-flipping and light wig-pulling, and the “You lie!” dust-up’s bipartisan theatrics are nothing more than a preview montage to next season’s highly anticipated “She called me low-budget so I called her a lying (bleep) and then she told so-and-so I was nothing but a (bleeping) (bleep) and then I told her I was sorry but she was all, ‘Say you’re sorry again in front of everyone or I’ll make you’ ” episode.

And yet there are lessons to be learned here.

I have two absolute favorite pastimes. The first is that I like to pick my husband’s brain to get his honest-to-goodness opinion on major life puzzlers such as, “If you could take either of our cats out for a beer, whom would you pick?” and “Which cat do you think would’ve gotten into Harvard early admission were he a human?”

Usually my husband responds by quietly saying, “Please don’t ever ask me that again.” Other times he’ll turn up the radio and pretend he didn’t hear me at all. Eventually, though, when my relentless staring and prodding get to be too much for him, he’ll indulge me. “Fine! I would take Dignan to a bar. And Ollie would’ve gotten into Harvard. But I have no idea which cat would get married first, which would look better in jeans or who would make us dinner if he could.”

Incidentally, my second absolute favorite pastime is sorting my meds by shape, size and color.