December 4 - 6, 1998
READER NOTICE: At any point between now and the end of the year, my wife could suddenly go into labor. When that happens, I will drop everything I'm doing and rush her to the hospital. Which means, no update that day. So if you see the same thing here two days in a row (not counting weekends), you'll know why. Now, back to our regularly scheduled rambling.

Big news day in the Eastern Loudoun Times, my local newspaper. Top story: Residents in the 20165 zip code here now get the option of listing themselves either in "Sterling," which is what this part of Loudoun County has been called for the last few decades, or "Potomac Falls," which is the newer, trendy title many citizens in that zip code wanted. 

A little bit of background is in order here: 20165 is where much of the higher-end construction is going on in the Sterling area. Bigger, more expensive homes and such, which are then filled with folks who apparently believe that the several hundred thousand dollars they have plunked down for a home entitles them to balkanize into an exclusive, upscale community (i.e., Potomac Falls), where they don't have to mix with the rabble. God forbid their friends in DC figure out they live in Sterling. It's bad enough that have rub shoulders with hoi polloi when they go shopping.

The compromise between "Sterling" and "Potomac Falls" is actually very helpful for those of us who live in Sterling, but reside in the 20164 zip code (which is, without any shadow of a doubt, classic Sterling -- meaning the houses are older than many of the owners). Now when we meet someone who tells us they live in "Potomac Falls," we'll know: This guy's a brainless snob. Not that we wouldn't have probably been able to guess from the Lexus.

Fortunately, I'll have a comeback: I lived in 20165 but moved out when I bought my house. So I can just say, "Yeah, I used to live in Potomac Falls, but I had to leave. Too much of the bad element coming in." Which, depending on what you consider to be the bad element, is the truth.

***

Now, having just cheerfully allied myself with the reg'lur folks as opposed to the snobbigentsia, let me be the first to admit that I'm a complete and utter fraud. Let's outline the facts: I went to a private, boarding high school, and then to an expensive, high-powered private university. I have a degree in philosophy. I've never worked a day of hard labor in my life. Currently, the most difficult thing about my job is that sometimes, because I need to go into the outside world to buy a compact disk to review, I actually have to put on pants. I just ain't reg'lur folks, folks.

Even so, I'm loathe to side with the yuppies. It's a self-image thing: I don't want to be the sort of person who would say "Potomac Falls" because it sounds better than saying "Sterling" (Which, for the record, it does not: "Potomac Falls" sounds like a mall with a Lord & Taylor's at one end, at Hecht's at the other, and a Rainforest Cafe somewhere in the middle), and I don't want to be with people who are that sort of person. 

Also, I don't want my daughter to be that sort of person either. Look, I went to school with a whole swarm of yuppie larvae (private boarding school, you'll recall). The majority of them grew up to be decent enough people, but while we were at Webb -- man. There's no snob like a teenage snob.

I'll tell you a story, and I swear to God it's 100% true. While at Webb, I mentioned to a friend the sense of entitlement and elitism that ran rampant at the school. She, being well in the thick of it herself, was somewhat disbelieving of this. So I made a little test: I typed up a signup sheet for a new club, The Elitist Society, "Designed to separate us, the elite, from them -- rabble at best." Club projects included trips to K-Mart to see how the other half lived. Applicants were to be screened.

Within 15 minutes of posting it, people had signed up. People, it should be noted, who were utterly bereft of the capability to register sarcasm. I only saw one person almost get it, though it was a close thing: This girl (who shall remain nameless, because, well, it's not really a flattering story, now, is it) stopped, pen in hand, mere centimeters from the paper, turned, and asked aloud, "Is this really a club?" And then she signed up, anyway. This girl would go on to be married at a yacht club. 

No offense to this woman (who was otherwise a good enough person then and now -- and who wouldn't do anything as dumb these days), but I'd rather my daughter be someone who could recognize the joke -- and certainly wouldn't have signed up if it had been totally serious. And I'd personally prefer not to spend too much time in the company of those whose sense of entitlement comes mostly from being born into a high tax bracket. 

And I don't: All my friends' senses of entitlement come from just being  a higher quality of human being. We're talking right down to the DNA. And, well, they're right to feel that way. I hang out with them, after all. You can see the logic, here.

-- JS

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