Quack Nun

As all savvy up-and-coming artists living with their parents will tell you, being a nanny can be the most ideal way to earn tax-free money. My friend wound up babysitting for a family who has an unconventional "communal bed." Translation: everyone in the family (including the 16-year-old son) sleeps in the same bed. Talk about gauche.

Speaking of gauche things to do, my friend also landed herself a childcare gig as a camp counselor. Unfortunately, one of the campers (a seemingly innocent 7-year-old girl) was incredibly racist. The first thing the girl said when she met my friend was, "Are you from jail?" soon followed by, "Are you illegal?" soon followed by, "Do you have a boyfriend?" soon followed by, "So you're a lesbian," soon followed by, "Well, it's okay if you're gay."

The girl's parents came to apologize for their daughter's inappropriate rant, but they managed to make the gauche factor even worse, by exclaiming, "We voted for Obama!"

Lurking Imminently

Psychological pregnancy is a little-known phenomenon that makes someone who is not pregnant feel and act like a pregnant woman. Abdominal swelling, food cravings, and even labor pains can arise—only no baby comes out at the end of the nine-month physical discomfort.

Pseudocyesis arises when a woman is desperate to become pregnant, or when she is around someone who is pregnant and feels a strong desire to connect with the baby. Increased estrogen and prolactin hormones in the body can lead to a swollen stomach and milk excretion. Her mind affects her hormones, which affect her body, which then affect her mind even more. My not-with-child sister recently suffered through a month of "morning sickness," but I am still mystified as to why she would have been desperate to have a baby, since she recently extricated herself from a Wanker of the Week and is en route to live in a cold, expensive, and dangerous city far far away.

Midnight Kielbasa

Summertime comes and people resort to meeting strangers on the street and agreeing to go on first dates with them. Unfortunately, the lighting at night on said streets often obscures the person's true mimbo factor, and a man who at first appears to resemble Jude Law in fact resembles something a bit closer to Jack the Ripper.

Gauche things to do to a girl on a first date:

1. Inviting her to your parents' house. Especially if you are over thirty-five.

2. When she arrives, offering her a beer at the kitchen counter.

3. Leaving "the game" on in the background so you can glance at the score.

4. Intermittently catching flies with your bare hands.

5. Talking about how you're "between careers" and recently underwent vocational testing to discover your "true calling."

6. Telling stories about doing shrooms.

7. Giving her a tour of all the make-out spots in your parents' house and neglecting to turn on any lights.

A Gothic Silversmith

Unfortunately, my recent interfacing with strangers on the internet has proven the adage that "If something seems too good to be true, it probably is." I found the rare Paris Craigslist gem: a luxurious one bedroom apartment just steps from Place des Vosges, for a mere 630 euros a month. There was a brand-new designer kitchen, lovely furnishings, original wooden ceiling beams, a sunken tub, and even the rare Parisian anomalies: a workout room and a parking space. My luck seemed too good to be true.

But I responded to the Craigslist ad, and to my delight, I was soon preparing for my year-long residence at 6 Rue du Foin. The owner sounded legitimate: a businessman who had been transferred to London; the exchange of the keys, the lease, and the first month's rent would be done through "a third party" so as to safeguard both our interests.

I almost sent a thousand dollars cash to London this weekend via the ever-sketchy money transaction system, MoneyGram—but as I was standing at my local Indian grocer, haggling with the cashier over MoneyGram's nonsensical protocols, I finally realized that my desperation for a perfect Paris apartment had robbed me of my cynicism toward people. I soon realized that the whole fiasco was a classic scam done by conniving Craigslist creepers who go bump in the night, preying on young girls and boys who are desperate for a place to rest their heads in The City of Light.

Coffee For One

Salum has managed a local gourmet ice cream shop ever since he moved to America from Mozambique nine years ago. He lives above the ice cream store and has worked nonstop 365 days a year for the past 9 years. At 7am he reports to duty making the ice cream from scratch, at 4:30 in the afternoon he takes his two-hour break (during which time he goes for a ten-mile run so as "not to become lazy and waste time watching TV"), and then he returns to work for the night shift. He saved enough money during the past 9 years to finally return home to Mozambique and retire.

Recently he invited me back to the kitchen where he concocts the elegantly novel ice cream flavors like "Burnt Sugar," "Khulfi," and "Mexican Chocolate." He gave me a taste of the fresh mint for his newest summer recipe. Near the giant silver mixers and cartons of candies he had tacked a calendar to the wall where he marks the number of days until he gets to fly home to a life of sunshine, relaxing, running, swimming, and hopefully marrying the woman of his dreams.

His story makes me feel ashamed of my own laziness. Maybe I should be working furiously and saving up so that in 9 years I can start living the dream. But I think that living the dream is more of a perennial way of life than a climax to a story.

Final Cut

A man I know pretends to be a hotel mogul, or at least the child of a hotel mogul, but more often than not, he strikes me as a compulsive liar. He pays exorbitant amounts of money for my friends to flounce about the hot spots of lower Manhattan and at every venue the management gives him the royal treatment. So we listen and nod when he rambles on about buying an island off the coast of Cuba and jetting off to Prague for a mid-week party trip.

This fellow wears his wealth on his sleeve, if that could be considered a viable turn of phrase, and he is no stranger to the Manhattan alpha-male penchant for calling girls repeatedly, even when those girls never answer. Some would deem this approach to be irritatingly idiotic—a classic mimbo move. But, I recently discovered that this mysterious hotelier is actually married ... so the fact that he hammer-calls multiple girls under age 23 on a daily basis makes me think that he is nothing but a wanker—a determined wanker with speed dial numbers in the hundreds.

Rolling Pastry Cutters

The classic Hollywood theme of the magical makeover is ever present in Sydney Pollack's oh-so-'90s version of Sabrina. A sojourn in Paris transforms Sabrina from an awkward "ugly duckling" wallflower to a radiant vision of femininity. Her lifetime crush (played by Greg Kinnear) is a shallow trust fund baby and a quintessential mimbo: blondish, boyish, and easily distracted from the task at hand. In true mimbo form, he sits down and cuts his ass on a pair of champagne flutes that he had intended to use in seducing Sabrina (aka not his fiancée)—talk about quick karmic disaster.

The older brother (played by Harrison Ford) is an endearingly geeky pimp who does all the billion dollar deals for the family company. In the end, I have decided that Harrison Ford circa the early-90s is my ideal dreamboat. His preppy-pimp-boy-scout virility in Working Girl and Sabrina could make end Princess in Flight stop running.

Real Pickles

Since Michael Jackson died, it has been a surreal world out there—mainly because the only songs played in public areas are MJ classics. The dance club near my current residence was no exception. And even though the crowd was mixed, the music was kickin' it old school.

Gauche things to do on the dance floor:

1. Mentioning to a random girl nearby that you didn't apply deodorant this morning. (Body odor is never an ideal pickup-line component).

2. Approaching a girl who just did a jump split and asking her, "Don't you need to warm up before you do that again?"

3. Doing any dance move that simulates fishing.

4. Using an architectural element that vaguely resembles a pole ... as a pole.

Big Subtle Macadamia Nut

Let's just say for the sake of argument that my friend was dating a boy named Dick Inwood. He was a prince with a roving eye and without vertebrae. He was fond of nights out in Shanghai, girls who wear Uggs, SKEX, and the law—not necessarily in that order. Dick Inwood makes the Wanker of the Week award, because after months of smothering his girlfriend in possessive love, one night he drank too much, had a fatal indiscretion, and promptly broke up with her. Did I mention that Dick Inwood pulled this mimbo move not once but twice? The second break-up took place via Skype, so he gets an extra special Wanker of the Week Gold Star Award for his creative use of technology.

Moral of the story: once a wanker, twice a wanker. Let's just hope that my friend doesn't go crawling back to Dick Inwood after he makes his inevitable puppy-dog plea for sympathy over the fact that he can't hold his liquor without falling for some random girl's line.

Taffy Pull

A thunderstorm and a marathon of David Lynch's surreal-sinister TV series, Twin Peaks, devolved into an afternoon receiving wisdom from a psychic named Stacey in the Leather District. When a Parisian pop start receives a tarot card reading at the start of Agnès Varda's Cléo de 5 à 7, she learns that she is going to die of cancer. My psychic told me that I have a sickness, but she also told me that she could "cure me with crystals and candles and medications, and whatever was necessary...in 9 days...for 300 dollars." Sounds like a deal to me.

Or maybe I should just use the money towards a summer getaway discount. The options on the website include "big cities," "romance," and "sunny spots." Stacey-the-psychic also asked me if I wanted to know the age of my death.

What would you do if you knew how many years you had left to live? Healing crystals, big cities, romance, or sunny spots? Or maybe just watch more Twin Peaks. Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Cooper is pretty hot—sort of a pimp-prince-mimbo fusion.

Wild Animals

My friend recently had a first experience with S.L.A.A. (Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous). If you're craving some serenity in the form of a 12-step program, then there is probably an Alcoholics-Anonymous-inspired group that's perfect for you. Are you addicted to cocaine, clutter, gambling, misogyny, nicotine, overeating, internet porn, or work? Or maybe you're like me, and you're simply addicted to strangers.

Gauche Things to do at an S.L.A.A. Meeting:

1. Eating sushi and seaweed salad with your bare hands.

2. Sharing your last name.

3. Trying to pick up other members of the group after the meeting. [Disclaimer: Anonymous Groups should in no way substitute your participation in various internet dating services.]

4. Taking your clothes off.