J.A.P.S.

This is a touchy entry. After all, we here at Girlyshoes try so very hard to be politically correct at all times, and the epithet JAP (referring to Jewish American Princesses) is so not PC.

On the other hand, being Jewish, and as the youngest grandchild on either side of my family and a little girl to boot, a certifiable princess in my own right, I feel that I can take liberties where others may not.
Having said that, let me also say that I am so not a JAP. Never have been. I cook, clean, enjoy relations with my husband and do not require massive amounts of jewelry in order to do so. I have always worked outside the home, and not as a charity volunteer, although I also do charity work. I do not shop as a competitive sport and I do not have a standing appointment for acrylic nails. I have never had plastic surgery, nor do I intend to. So there. Furthermore, my nose is my own, original model, as is my hair color.

Now that we have the ground rules, if you will, let me say that I have spent the last three days in the company of JAPS, and the last two weeks trying to pry information and money out of another set of same, and I can honestly say that I'd rather poke myself in the eye with the charred end of a sharp stick than do either ever again.

The three days at the bead expo were wonderful learning and shopping days, except for the time spent with a woman who can best be described as a Dowager Princess. She was needy, demanding, a know-it-all, requiring constant attention from either her co-students or teacher, engaged in extended one-up-manship and bragging and made me want to convert to Episcopalian, just so I could sigh and say "Not our kind, dear." She was dreadful. Her daughter was somewhat better behaved, but utterly clueless as to polite conversation.

In response to my question "You did recieve the thank you note I sent after my father died?" she said (and I fucking quote) "Yes. And it was such a sob story that I felt even worse after I read it."

Yeah. My life last year was pretty much a sob story, and if you think reading about it sucked, try living it, beyatch.

The Dowager and I actually shared a work table in our class on day three, and I was tempted to shove her Ott lamp down her throat. The first few hours she complained non-stop about the teacher's instructions to use double thread. The teacher kept saying that if you found it hard to work, use the thread and strand count you preferred. It was more entertaining for the DP to bitch, and so she did. I finally said to her, why don't you stop complaining and change threads? So she did, and the next three hours were spent gloating over how utterly fabulous her work was, and talking about how much better it was to work with her choice of material rather than the instructor's.

The second interaction with a company of JAPS involved my latest tallit commission. The little princess apparently did not like one piece of fabric that I used and it so upset her that her bat mitzvah was nearly ruined. She had to have a dress maker install a piece of fabric over the offending two and one half inch wide stripe, before she could go on. The matching tallit bag was salvagable only by turning it inside out, which she was able to do because I made it with no seams showing.

Not that she or her mother have had the courtesty, despite e-mails from me, to tell me any of this. I have it third hand, from a cousin who happens to be friends with the mother. I also have not been paid.

I am expected, I have been led to understand, to remedy this atrocity for them. It seems that't the princess doesn't like purple at all, and the fabric stripe in question was a strip of magenta silk brocade, the brocade pattern being leopard spots. She felt that the color was more correctly defined as purple, and she hated it. The leopard was more than she could bear, and she just broke down in tears and rage. Or so I've heard, third hand, as I said.

Check out the offending fabric

And here it is in place, so you can see the proportions

I'd also like to point out that the only direction I was given in making this, was that the girl was a princess, and as such needed some sparkle and glamor.

OK, fine, so their idea of sparkle and glamor and my own don't match. Is that any reason to stiff me on my fee, or to not contact me with complaints and concerns?

I didn't think so. Bite me. I'm off to work.