Dear Spanish ladies,

I know you aren’t always at the cutting edge of fashion, what with the mullet still a popular hairstyle, wearing leggings as pants, and confusing style with the sporting of designer labels – and I don’t expect you to be. But I felt particularly pressed to speak up about a recent disturbing trend that I have seen everywhere for over a year now–summer and winter–that has me cringing: Flesh colored pantyhose worn under short shorts.

I get it ladies – you want to wear the shorts, but want some coverage and don’t want the lady parts hanging out. But nude hose are not flattering and are never fashionable. They look dated and crappy on the waitresses and chambermaids who are still forced to wear them, and they look dated and crappy on you. Just remind yourself when you reach for them in the sock drawer: You are not a cirque du soliel performer, you are not Lady GaGa and you are not a professional ballroom dancer. Put them back in the drawer.

I’m not saying don’t wear the shorts, put those things on! And if you want to hold the ladyparts in/hide the buttcheek (and I commend you for doing so) or just be warmer, then don some sheer colored tights or even patterned hose.

Just please, not the nude stockings.

Do you need more reasons to dissuade you? OK: They are particularly disturbing when your legs are wanting of a shave. Stuffing your leg hairs into nude pantyhose does not hide the hair. I’ll be blunt, when you are a grown-ass woman, you can’t get away with shaving up to your knees and stopping like you did when you were 15. No. You are hairier now than when you were a teenager. Some of you teenagers are hairier than others, so don’t think because you still have a 1 to the left of your age numbers you get a free ticket.

If you don’t want to commit to shaving the full leg out of laziness, denial, or the belief in some myth that shaving makes your hair grow back thicker and darker (it is already thick and dark enough, believe me and everyone else you’ve stood next to in that outfit on the metro) then please, do yourself a favor and don some colored tights.

That’s all.

Love, Me

Dear squatters who took over the building in the plaza near where I live:

I have a few bones to pick with you.

First, I know you think you are making a statement by breaking into and occupying private property. I know this because I actually dated a few boys who squatted when I went to University in England oh so very long ago. I thought they were cool and edgy and sometimes I even stayed in them with said boyfriends and the rest of the punk rockers or otherwise who lived in such establishments.

But I can forgive the old me for these beliefs and actions because I was 17 and liberal and, it goes without saying, ignorant. Sure, many of you may be in your early or mid twenties, but more than a handful of you appear to be well beyond that.

I understand the feelings of camaraderie and maybe even power of a group that believes it is “beating the system”. But you guys, you are too old for this. You don’t even have any system here to beat. The state gives you money every month even though you have never had a job in your life (at least not that you told the government about) and your healthcare (albeit at standards far too low for my taste) is free. You will also get retirement money, having never paid taxes in your life. It won’t be much but enough to buy that nasty beer I always see you drinking and the occasional baguette that you will share with your dog on a rope.

You steal electricity and water and even hang your laundry out–so that we see you actually DO laundry–but the entire neighborhood still thinks that you are dirty and an eyesore and are pissed that you just lowered their property value by hanging those ridiculous signs off your balconies. Like any of us in the neighborhood give a shit what you think you stand for. All we notice are the booze bottles and trash piled outside your doors every day.

Second. A word about your adopted hair-dos. I know you believe you are being edgy with the business in the front, party in the back hair, but I hate to break it to you (OK that’s a lie, I’ve been dying to tell every single one of you this) –mullets are not progressive. You did not invent this hair-do. The Germans have embraced this contemptible look for nearly 30 years. Mullets are, in fact, passe. They have had their heyday, and just because you were little kids during it’s near decade in the spotlight, you can’t lay claim.

Oh sure, you fancy them up by making them more disgusting than a straightforward, brushable shag by adding dreadlocks to the party in the back. Sometimes, you only have a clump growing out of the middle of the back of your head. I have to tell you that either way, the dirty clumps of hair sprouting out the back of your cranium resemble sprouting long, uncoiled poops. Hiding beads and metal bits in the them does not distinguish from plain old poop coming out of the back of your head, it just adds to the effect.

And that is really all the time I have for you.

Sincerely, Me.

Edit: here is a shining example of the hair style in this post…

And here is a spy shot I took while waiting in line at the market of one the squatters nasty feet: