"I am prejudiced against yuppies," I said recently. One of the folks whom I was addressing politely pointed out that many of them were yuppies themselves. Not that I had forgotten that nor was I oblivious to the comfortable fit of the same proverbial shoes on my own feet...well, I did say "prejudiced" and the choice of that word ought to say something.

You see, I started hating them back in the '80s when the yuppies first arrived on the planet. I was in grad school then and on my own for the first time, a couple of continents away from home. When I found my bearings, about a year after that big leap, all I seemed to want was to use the degree I was working toward as a ticket to the land of a car, a condo and a gym-bod, the land where familial ties couldn't reach and mess with my head. Knowing that this geeky foreign student with "issues" wouldn't be joining the march of those Izod-sporting locals to that promised land turned me off Izods forever (I know Izods are preppie, not yuppie, well...they all look the same to me!). Since then, I've never known a yuppie I liked, not even the latent one that went everywhere with me.

Enough already, you say, yuppies died with disco so get over it! Shows how much you know. Disco only plays dead when you're looking...or listening...it'll engulf you when you least expect it like when you're in a club full of kids who were barely conceived when disco reigned. The yuppies are quite alive and well as well, I've seen them in my rear-view mirror, appearing only as the blinding headlights of an imposing SUV and looking as handsome as ever when they block my view of the traffic lights. So, my prejudice is not based on paranoia, they really are out to get me.

"Die, yuppie scum!" they used to say. I still say that sometimes in front of the mirror. It feels good. Then I put on my shoes on my way out of my apartment, from which I'll move someday to a house that I own. I say khuda hafiz to my mother and nervously smile when I realize how comfortable my shoes feel today.

--aslam

10:00:26 PM