I spent the summer of 1997 working in New England at a summer camp, I loved it. We’d spend our days off at the local strip mall and that summer was the summer of WWJDN or 'What would Jesus do now?' jewelry. Jesus is not really up my alley but what would Bridget do now that is an entirely different dialect, one that I can absolutely relate to and there is, of course, only one Bridget Jones.
I just flew 24 hours to be with my family. The journey involved long lay-overs where I managed to spend way too much money on pretty shoes, a pedicure and blow drying my hair straight. I immediately smudged the pedicure, realized that dead straight hair is not a good plane look and also promptly managed to forget my bottle of dirt-cheap-whiskey on the inter-terminal bus. In other words I had a long series of Bridget Jone's moments. The inter-terminal bus just pulled up alongside my window, WWBDN – she’d shout out to the lovely couple enjoying a glass of wine at 1:40 pm local time, ask them to watch the bags containing all the earthly possessions she deemed worth schlepping across the world and make a mad-dash to get it back.
I am reunited with the cheap liquor, my belongings are intact and I couldn’t even thank the driver, he'd popped out – so I whipped the bottle out from behind his seat and sprinted back to my luggage. He’ll be upset later when he realizes the free bottle of whiskey he thought he'd just scored, has gone.
I also flew from the a very hot summer, the day I left it was 40◦c, to a nice chilly Antarctic winter and what am I wearing on my feet – well the very pretty sandals with the diamante panels I just bought, of course. Don't think I don’t have an entirely warmer and more practical pair of boots in my carry on but I’ll be damned if I’m putting those on. WWBDN? – why freeze of course.
The other thing about international travel, for those of us that do not hail from the USA, where luggage restrictions are unheard of and people often travel with two small trailers, is a 20 kilo luggage limit. You can get away with 26 depending on how much you’re willing to flirt at check-in. WWBDN? What ever it takes – I’m going to start traveling with boxes of jewButt to give away…
Now don’t get me wrong I’m as fond of Carrie as a modern woman who loves New York City ought to be. She is glamorous, she wears milanos (some would argue she made them famous), she looks good with straight or curly hair and she is undaunted by international travel. I aim for Carrie but realistically Bridget is the every-woman. Carrie lands in Paris looking unwrinkled and ready to shop. Bridget goes on holiday to Thailand, almost hooks up with the guy we all know is an incorrigible womanizer from the first movie, gets drugs planted on her and ends up in jail. I don’t smuggle drugs but bringing kosher food into New Zealand makes one’s heart beat unnecessarily fast and who hasn’t had a relationship with an incorrigible womanizer? WWBDN – she’d make underwear that’s what she’d do.
Now I’m going to reapply lip gloss, wear my glamorous gold Carrie wrap and sell jewButt. 950 pairs to go.
