Read Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office : A Memoir for Free Online

the totals for the environmental bliss of life in Gotham, $3600 in rent, $1200 a month in parking, $12 a day in coffee, $200 a week in Broadway tickets, and $96 a month in hot dogs.
After explaining that the rest of America goes to about one movie a month, pays an average of $600 a month for a mortgage, and could make four car payments on the $1200 a month parking fee, I knew I had made an impact.
My sister turned to me and said, “I suppose I could do without the hot dogs.”
    —Todd Lancaster
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    Ah, home sweet home. Fletch hauls my bags up the fifty steps to our apartment…the one drawback to living in the penthouse. You’d think my ass would be smaller from all the climbing.
    As I unpack, I shiver with delight over all the designer labels…Tomatsu, Karen Kane, Dana Buchman, Ralph Lauren, a few prized pieces of Chanel and Versace, etc. I really ought to thank Shelly Decker for my fabulous wardrobe. No, Shelly isn’t my personal shopper. She’s the hateful little troll who drew the thinly disguised comic strip about me ( Muffy the Preppy, my ass) and abused her position as features editor to place it smack on page two of our high school newspaper. If it hadn’t been for her public goading, I’d never have become the fashionista I am today. Even almost eighteen years later, my blood boils about the day I saw that stupid cartoon….
    “Look at this,” I shrieked while throwing open the front door and tossing my book bag in the corner. “Look! LOOK! I have been wronged! ”
    “S’matter with you, Peeg?” Todd asked from the couch in the family room off the kitchen. My brother had stationed himself there before I left for school hours earlier, apparently still recuperating from his freshman year of college. He’d indulged in a steady diet of ginger ale and Gomer Pyle reruns for the past three days. The nine months without him in the house had been heavenly, as his sole purpose in life was to make mine miserable. Normally I’d attack him for the “peeg” comment (really, how can you be a pig when you can squeeze into size five Jordache jeans?) but I had other priorities.
    “I’m not talking to you, TOAD. Mom, look at this…. It’s awful! I’m ruined! I have been personally attacked!” I wailed while wildly waving a copy of my high school newspaper.
    “Oh, Jen, I’m sure you’re overreacting again. Let me see.” Mom put down her load of clean laundry and perused the offered page, eyes scanning back and forth. She wrinkled her brow. “You’re ruined because the drama club chose Little Mary Sunshine for the fall play?”
    “No, it’s this right here!” I stabbed the offending section with a pointed finger.
    “The Muffy the Preppy comic strip?”
    “Yes! Read it!”
    “Muffy the Preppy says…hmm, hmm, hmm… real pearls from Hudsons…hmm, hmm…shut up, you animals…hmm, hmm…and I’m done. It’s cute. Did you draw this?”
    “MOTHER! How could you think it’s cute? That bitch Shelly Decker drew this about ME! See? She’s got the pearls and the Shet-land sweater tied around the shoulders and everything. And it’s the last day of school, and this insult is all anyone will think about the whole summer.”
    “I know you feel you’re an adult, but you may not swear in this house.” Over my mother’s shoulder, I could see Todd making faces and flipping me off. I’d deal with him later. “I think you’re being melodramatic. What’s the big deal?”
    “Do you not understand that I have a reputation to uphold in that school? I cannot just have my character assassinated by the media.”
    “Sorry, Zsa Zsa , I forgot that you were so averse to negative publicity.” My mother resumed folding the load of whites she’d been holding.
    “Mother! You’re not taking this seriously! Don’t mock me! I had to work really hard to fit in here after we moved from New Jersey. It took YEARS for me to work my way up to the semicool crowd, and I had to lose the atrocious Jersey accent to do it. The