Yuppie Angst

I am consumed by a burning question. Am I a Yuppie?

After getting the kids to school, I went to Starbucks to get some writing done. When I'm at home, I waste time on the blogs, so it's best to get out. I usually work at Starbucks until 10:00 when the public library opens.

I walk into the coffee shop. The guy behind the counter already has my coffee ready. I'm a regular.

I pull my laptop out of my new, super cool laptop bag with a cross strap. Previously, I had been wrapping my laptop in a plastic bag and sweatshirt, so I'm feeling very fancy indeed.

After working for an hour, I went to the gym to sign up for their winter special. The membership director gave me a tour of the facilities. There were rows of treadmills and bikes and other mysterious things each with their own TV screens. People work out in front of large windows, so that the passing drivers can admire their abs. Upstairs, there was a kicking exercise class going on and weight stuff. They had 7 different varieties of yoga. And daycare, too. Very impressive.

Only a few years ago, we belonged to Frank's gym on Broadway around the corner from the Coliseum theater on 181st Street. Frank's gym catered to Dominican weight lifters. There was a sign on the door that said "No Dogs. No Guns." In one room, there were the weights, and the other room had two treadmills and two bikes. Frank, who was a sweet guy, sold weight supplements and steroids behind the counter. There were a couple of TV anchored to the wall that played Telemundo all day.

Today, the membership director smirked at my fitness ignorance. I didn't know what an elliptical machine was. Never taken an exercise class before. I asked dumb questions about yoga. She thought I was a gym rube.

Since there was no sign at this new gym, I assume I can take my gun inside.

Between the fancy gym, my fancy coffee, my fancy laptop case, I am feeling very spoiled. In no time at all, I will have a designer handbag and lip gloss. This seems very close to Yuppie to me.

Steve says that I'm not a Yuppie, because I'm not young, not urban, and technically not employed. After kicking him in the ass, I had to admit that he was correct. I'm suburban, middle aged, and have indeterminate employment status. I'm a SMIES. Correction, I'm a SMIES SCAB (still cute as a button).

I guess all this Yuppie angst is coming out of survivor guilt. I'm not sure where to draw the line between necessity and conspicuous consumption. Where do you cross over that line into grossness?

Comments

[timna]

interesting that maybe survivor guilt happens when academic jobs don't materialize. I wonder for myself how I pictured us moving, leaving financial security, so I could take a tenure-track job that paid very little. That would make sure we'd never be able to afford the health club.

[corinne]

every morning i get up at 6 and haul myself into the train so that i can get to the fancy ladies gym that has floral arrangements in the locker rooms (floral arrangement?!?!?). then i go to my office job, and on my lunch break sometimes i go to starbucks to have a caffeine high to take me through the afternoon, and to eat my lunch out of my tupperware. i spent $50 on a haircut a while ago. i am young and employed... but. i don't know. i'm also queer and radical and want to undermine capitalism and the traditional family... so i'm not sure where that puts me. especially because the gym which is the closest to luxury consipicuous consumption is *very necessary* i have a clear choice --
work out five-seven hours a week or
spend five-seven hours a week hyperventilating. it's pretty easy to not feel guilty about that choice... but i wonder sometimes.

[Macaroni]

You're not SMIES. You're SYIES--young. Repeat. Young. Though technically if you're middle age that makes me middle aged too. And, I am not middle aged. I expect an immediate editorial correction.... : )

[jen]

A friend of mine used to say, "Yuppie is just the new term for bourgeois; it's something you call someone who has more money than you."

Which is sometimes true and sometimes not; the textbook definition of bourgeois includes an over-emphasis on material goods and small-mindedness. Whereas yuppie seems to imply an over-emphasis on material goods combined with snobbery. Or perhaps these days yuppie just means middle-class but born after 1960.

[Chris]

I tend to think of yuppies as limosine liberals, or in this day and age, SUV liberals, though liberal isn't really a requirement now-a-days. It's just that the "liberal" ones tend to stick out a bit more. When I was still in the adjunct pool in academe, we used to refer to them as "Armani Marxists."

[Henry]

Today at work our friendly UPS driver harshed our organic coffee shipment. "What? Is Dunkin Donuts not good enough for you?"

Actually, no. Good coffee is like clothes and shelter. On that score, you're off the hook.

[jen]

There's actually some serious tension in my extended family over the coffee issue. (My sister brings her own coffee to family events, having deemed the coffee the rest of us serve as sub-standard. It's provoked much commentary.)

I would argue that insisting on a certain type of coffee is a direct path to being labeled a yuppie in many quarters.

[Doug K]

"I'm not sure where to draw the line between necessity and conspicuous consumption."

well, the laptop is mostly necessary for you to work, right ? the gym sounds a tad luxurious, but for a mom in the urbs/suburbs, it's hard to find another way to exercise regularly (ask my wife ;-)
Coffee is hardly an essential, but $3/day isn't grotesque.

so, I think you're in the clear..

I'm a Dumpie (downwardly-mobile urban professional), been one all my life, scrabbling hard to maintain the not-very-opulent lifestyle (when I'm rich I'll be able to afford a lifestyle) of my English-teacher father..

[Henry Woodbury]

No no no! Coffee is essential (though I'm not saying the same for milk-based barista drinks).

As for the gym -- what? the YMCA isn't good enough for you? :) Even for our paltry Y membership we have an excuse -- the kids swimming lessons.

I'm an SSSUP, I suppose (Steady State Semi-Urban Professional).

[Michael]

I think you should just settle on the reality that you are priviliged. You don't have to be a yuppie to be privileged, just have to have the life with the level of freedom to hang out at Starbucks and go to a gym (and be able to afford them). That's privilege.

[kip]

Bikram yoga rules. I dragged myself to the traditional 90 minute class and it was really tough. Its like doing a push up for 90 minutes in the hot summer sun and I was one of two guys in the class. You will get hooked.