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There are a lot of disadvantages to being a girl. Besides the hassle of bleeding out of my crotch every month, I can’t always go out in my favorite outfit - a shirt/tank top and a pair of shorts - unless I want to become a statistic. Whenever I attempt to leave the house at night with my legs showing, my parents make me march back up to my room and change into something more “decent”. I try to reason with them by explaining I wear shorts because they’re comfortable, and that my thunder thighs and peklat-ridden calves will deter any man from making a pass at me. They retort by saying, “Waling pinipili ang lalaking lasing.” So I guess even having horrible legs won’t keep me from becoming a rape victim. Fabulous.

But perhaps this single biggest disadvantage to being a girl is having breasts and making sure they receive proper support. No thanks to the ample boobage given to me by genetics, bra shopping is one of my least favorite activities in the world.

If somebody told me that the brassier was designed by a man, I wouldn’t be surprised. Most bras being sold today come with an underwire, which is supposed to enhance the cleavage and provide extra support. Only a man would design a bra that would make a woman’s cleavage pop out of her top at the expense of her comfort. I’ve tried underwire bras before and the only support my boobs get from them was not so much support as a painful pinching sensation. Ever since then, I’ve made it a point to buy only wireless bras. Unfortunately, finding a bra without under wire takes forever, and wireless bras with matching panties are nonexistent.

Underneath all my clothes lies a fashion victim whose sole crime is mismatched lingerie.

While waiting for my dad to finish doing the groceries today, my mom handed me a bunch of gift checks and told me to grab her some underwear and to get myself bras. I walked to the department store’s lingerie section, determined to find a matching bra and panty set and look stylish with clothes and without clothes. Which is not to say that anyone will be seeing me in my underthings anytime soon. I just feel strangely safe with the knowledge that I’m wearing nice underwear that goes with my bra.

At the department store, I found myself growing increasingly cranky as I inspected all the printed, patterned, and lacy bras and discovered that all of them came with the accursed underwire. I did see this wireless, whore-red bra that was three sizes too large for me. It didn’t have a matching panty.

After getting my mom’s underwear and walking around the lingerie section twice, I gave up on looking for a cute bra and panty set and decided to settle for a plain, boring bra with no wire. I thought I lucked out when I found a wireless Wacoal bra with removable straps. The moment the bra cupped my boobies in the privacy of the dressing room, I fell in love. It was a perfect fit! No matter how much I jumped and wiggled, the bra didn’t slide down my chest when I removed the straps. So if you’ve always thought that strapless bras require underwire to hold your boobs in place - I tell you now that that isn’t true.

As soon as I was done fitting, I made a mad dash to the nearest cashier. The department store was holding a sale and the lines resembled spirals that seemed to go on forever. In my rush to pay for my stuff and get the hell out of there, I only remembered to check the price tag while I already in line. My heart nearly stopped when I saw that the Wacoal bra cost 985 ouchies. The gift certificates from my mom weren’t enough, and it was too late for me to go back and try on something else. And so I ended up paying the full amount for the bra.

I hate being a girl.

I love bargains. Don’t we all? During a shopping trip at St. Francis Square, I thought I struck gold when I unearthed a hardcover copy of Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus for only 300 pesos. The inside jacket cover promised me a story that involves “Working in a world where a college degree qualifies her to make photocopies and color-coordinate file folders, twenty-four year old Girl is struggling to keep up with the essential trinity of food, shelter, and student loans.” A fictional story on the perils of being a young twenty-something in the modern working world! I’ve yet to encounter anything like this - for only three hundred bucks. What a bargain, right?

Worst. Book. EVER.

Well, let me tell you something about bargains. A bargain is when you pay a low price for an item whose awesomeness makes it worth ten times the price you originally paid for, you cheapskate. When the said item lets you down, no matter how dirt-cheap you got it for, that’s not a bargain. That’s downright robbery.

Not only did Citizen Girl rob me of 300 pesos; I shall never get back the four hours I spent reading this crap. A member of the white-collar working class no longer has the luxury to sit around in two-day old pajamas reading some piece of shit book. I’m willing to let those four hours slide but if I don’t get my money back, whether literally or in the form of karmic currency, someone’s walls shall be painted with my menstrual blood. Soon.

Does you want menstrual art on ur walls?

I suspected that Citizen Girl might be a chick lit novel since the cover art proclaimed that the authors were the ones who penned The Nanny Diaries, another one of those chick books turned movies. But I figured - hey, with a premise like that, there’s no way this book is chick lit. Two pages into the first chapter, I was eating my words in silent defeat.

There are two infallible ways by which you can detect chick lit from good old-fashioned literature. First, the horrible writing style, which I shall explain in a little bit. Second, if the story is more plot-driven than character driven, wherein the plot consists of a whimsical series of events that do not follow the rules of logic, then what you have in your hands is chick lit.

Oh god, the writing style. Think of the ditziest blog you know and have it hump a badly-written Cosmopolitan article (which is not to say that GOOD Cosmopolitan articles exist). That’s what Citizen Girl reads like. What makes the offspring different from its parents is that there are four-syllable words and feminist theories sprinkled here and there so the girls who actually like reading this crap can feel like they’re so smrt. Can someone please hand me a gun?

Just to show you how BAD this book is, I have rewritten the first paragraph of this entry according to the writing style the authors have employed.

I love depreciated acquisitions. Don’t we all? Is that my crush I see online on YM? ZOMG! During an interactive shopping trip at St. Francis Square, I was blithely astonished when I disintered a hardcover copy of Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus at the nominal price of 300 pesos. OMG he’s messaging me. OMGOMGOMGOMGOGMOGMG. The inside jacket cover promised me a tale that involves HE is messaging ME! Ask me out pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease. “Working in a world where a college degree qualifies her to make photocopies and color-coordinate file folders, twenty-four year old Girl is struggling to keep up with the essential trinity of food, shelter, and student loans.” I’ve been burned by love before but I know how to open my heart to every new possibility. I AM READY TO LOVE YOU! Letmelove you oh please letmeloveyou. A boolean, fictional account on the perils of being a young twenty-something in modern day capitalist society! Does he like me? Does he? Mustnotoverthinkmustnotoverthinkmustnotoverthink. I’ve yet to alight upon anything like this - for only three hundred pesos. OMG HE ASKED ME OUT. What an economical find, right? Tee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee heeeeee.

If you like what you read, then grab a copy of Citizen Girl. The writing style gets even better. And by “better” I mean “worse”. What amazes me is that this crap not only sells — it gets movie deals too! If I spend the every single day of the next two years churning out chick lit after chick lit novel, I can retire a millionaire by the time I’m twenty-five. Sounds like a new life plan!

Citizen Girl tries to make up for the paper-thin characters by filling the plot with all these ridiculous events. First, our protagonist Girl (seriously, what kind of writer names their female protagonist Girl!?) gets fired by the Boss From Hell after enduring an entire slew of evil stepmother-like treatment from her. (Did I mention that Girl has a 14-year old brother named Jack? After Jack Kerouac? ZOMG beatnik literary reference! What a deep this book is!) Of course she meets the man of her dreams at a job fair and they get together in two weeks. Why these stupid books always involve the female protagonist falling in love with someone even though this in no way contributes to the story’s development completely baffles me.

After that, a bunch of crap happens which I won’t bother listing down because I need to hit the gym in ten minutes. I will add though, that Girl does find a job eventually only for her to quit in the end because she gets asked to run a porn site. Since Girl is a feminist, and porn is “rape” spelled backwards, managing an adult website was something waaay beneath her moral standards. I think the message of the novel has something to do about never compromising what you believe in, but I’m not really sure. What Citizen Girl really taught me is that if you write bad fiction about single working women in their twenties, you’ll make more money than you’ve ever dreamed of.

Oh, and you’ll never guess what her boss’s name is. Yep, you guessed right. Girl’s boss is aptly named Guy. This book, what a clever!!

The inside cover jacket says that Citizen Girl “Captures with biting accuracy what it means to be young and female in the new economy…an entertaining read that is startlingly relevant.” I don’t know about the entertainment factor, but Citizen Girl is about as relevant to me as paparazzi shots of Lindsay Lohan’s McDonald’s breakfast, or what used to be a McDonald’s breakfast, floating in the toilet seat of a club in New York’s Meat Packing District. Which is to say, not very relevant at all. As for its accuracy, pfft. Unless I’m the only 21-year college graduate in the world who didn’t land a job where business trips involve a designer shopping spree and a complete makeover in LA, I can safely say that the events in this book are about as accurate as…aw hell, I’m not even gonna bother with metaphors anymore.

Maybe I’ll sue the publisher for false advertising. Or maybe I should fly to New York and hunt these wimmin down. Then when I find them I’ll shoot them in the head so they’ll never write a single book again.

I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of periods and the disposable items that absorb menstrual blood. During lunch outside 7-11 with my friends at work (and by “lunch” I mean chocolate, milk tea, and a crapload of cigarettes), I remembered that I had gotten my period a few hours back and I was due for a napkin change.

“Oh yeah, I need to buy napkins!” I announced, because I like to bother my friends with mundane things about myself, like the need to refresh my stash of sanitary pads. They usually ignore me every time I do that but today, I elicited a reaction! Paeng, who was sitting next to me, slapped his forehead with his palm and went, “Putang ina namaaan.” (”Your mother is a whore namaaaan.”)

We tight, yo

“Bakit, anong masama sa napkins? Meron ako ngayon eh!” was my indignant reply. (”What’s wrong with buying napkins? I have my period today!”)

“Ano ba, nagbebenta ako nyan dati!” (”Ano ba, I used to sell that shit before!”)

I stared at him dumbfounded before bursting into a manic fit of shits and giggles. Paeng sputtered and exclaimed, “Mahirap ang buhay dati!” (”Hey, life was tough back then!”) then clarified that he dealt feminine products in their family sari-sari store. Not that it erased the image I had of him in my head, walking in between cars during traffic much like a street vendor. Except instead of cigarettes and candy he was peddling sanitary pads.

(This reminded me about another unusual job a friend used to have. A certain Man Blog editor, whose identity I shall hide under the name Bim, once had a fitness club gig that involved teaching old ladies how to do self-defense. Except he wasn’t the the self-defense instructor. Nope. He got to be the sleaze who played the role of purse snatcher and granny rapist. I LOLed for such a long time that Bim gave up trying to tell the rest of the story and stomped out for a smoke. Then I punched him in the gut and he lay crumpled on the floor for a good five minutes. I’m an awesome friend like that.)

Paeng then told me about how putting napkins on display is a great way to earn even more money, if you own the neighborhood sari-sari store. A girl would go up to the sari-sari store with her eyes on the napkins sitting on the shelf. Upon seeing Paeng, a guy, they’d stop and pretend to be distracted by the other merchandise. “Uhh…pabili ng softdrinks. At saka junk food. At saka candy. At saka yosi.” (”Uhh…I’d like to buy a Coke. And some chips. And some candy. And some cigs.”) And then after a pause, she’d say sheepishly, “Pabilinarinngnapkin.” (”Icanhasbuyanapkinkthxbai.”) After making Paeng wrap the napkins in newspaper, she’d get shifty-eyed and walk away quickly, as though she just bought a whole block of high-grade hash instead of absorbent polypropylene.

Inspired by this story, I decided to have a little fun and chase Paeng back to the office while waving my 7-11-bought pack of Kotex over my head. He ran as fast as his gout-ridden legs could carry him, screaming the entire time. Well, not really. He just kind of walked straight ahead, but not before throwing me a look that said “Stay the fuck away from me, woman!”

One of the things I don’t get about women is why they ask poor sari-sari store vendors like Paeng to wrap their purchased sanitary napkins with newspaper. It most certainly can’t be done for hygienic purposes, as napkins come covered in their own protective layer of paper. Is it because they’re embarrassed that they’re on their periods? But why? Care to enlighten me? Being on the rag is not exactly something I’d brag about, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to hide it from the world either.

I would, however, tell everyone I know about it. Just because I can.