30 Things Every Woman Should Have And Should Know By The Time She's 30

That cat umbrella is amazing.

seriously ladies, now you must measure your self-worth in .... umbrellas! you thought they were just to keep rain off, but you were wrong.

tune in next month when we make you feel shitty for getting your dishware at ikea and wearing an outdated style of belt!

If I measure my self worth in umbrellas, I am either worth a lot because I buy a lot of umbrellas or I'm worthless because I leave all of my umbrellas in trains, buses, and taxis.

b_g: <3 <3

the first time i met laurel (in seattle) we were talking about the no-one-in-seattle-uses-an-umbrella mythology and i told her that i have two umbrellas, but only because they're cute. she gave me the great compliment of saying, "of course you do." (it's possible it was not meant as a great compliment but i chose to hear it as one.)

i also have a thing for cute suitcases.

therefore i voted for the umbrellas and suitcases option even though that list is exceptionally infuriating.

12. That nobody gets away with smoking, drinking, doing drugs, or not flossing for very long.

6. A past juicy enough that you’re looking forward to retelling it in your old age.

These two kinda contradict each other, I think.

I have some really juicy flossing stories!

Umbrellas are one of those things i think of purely as a functional item, not a fashion accessory. My thought process is basically (a) i need to walk outdoors, (b) it's raining, (c) i don't want to get drenched, so (d) i grab whatever umbrella i find first so i'll stay dry. When buying an umbrella, I just look for one that folds up really small, is lightweight but strong, and not too expensive. I almost always get the black ones, since they never look out of place.

I get why this list might make ppl angry but I also feel like, since my teens, I knew the magazine/fashion industry was craven and corrupt, not to take it all too seriously. Yeah, it's shitty to buy into the shit they're peddling but at the very least I refuse to even dignify it with comment.

Could someone post the male equivalent of this list so I can see which 30 things I am most assuredly failing at?

i think it's okay to still point out that shitty things are shitty esp when they're from 1997 and being reposted without irony on huffington post in 2012

it's also okay to make jokes about them bc laughing is fun

Could someone post the male equivalent of this list so I can see which 30 things I am most assuredly failing at?

since a month or so ago, when my mother said to me 'you're going to be 30 next year!' (which i am but i am 28 right now, okay) i have been feeling a lot of oh-god-i'm-nearly-30 type pressure. oh god i'm nearly 30 and i haven't got my shit together, oh god i'm nearly 30 and i have unreasonable expectations about how chill it's going to be to be a thirtysomething, oh god i'm nearly 30 and i haven't made enough bad choices in my 20s to pass muster as someone who's successfully 'done' their 20s, all of it.

and so even though i am not a women's mag kind of woman this sort of thing can catch me pretty hard - not the contents of the list itself, but the idea that there is a list, and i should be getting on top of it.

oh my days b_g that kitten umbrella!!!

confession: I bought the official umbrella that was used in rihanna's music video

clear umbrellas are the best, so much fun to stand under one during a downpour

Anyone remember the umbrella fetishist that posted here a few years back?

oh god i'm nearly 30 and i haven't got my shit together

I didn't start feeling like this until I was about 38 or 39.

I have had so many umbrellas die on me in my life that I could never imagine getting a nice one

the key thing is not to care about traditional measures of getting ones shit together

Getting your shit together is a temporary achievement...Everything falls part in the end.

I have had so many umbrellas die on me in my life that I could never imagine getting a nice one

― iatee, Thursday, April 26, 2012 6:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

heh I've always wondered why every single store in NYC carries the same generic black umbrella

somebody should do a study about it, like that one about the greek coffee cups

If anything, my shit has become ever-more-disparate in the five years since my thirtieth.

Probably something I should talk to a proctologist about.

i used to have this fucking awesome paul frank umbrella that, one of the big transparent ones, made of blue plastic, with some kind of monkey-based design. i was going to japan for a term and so i took it with, thinking, it's going to be the rainy season and i'll have a cute umbrella that will be different from the cute umbrellas everyone else has, it'll be awesome. and then it turned out that in japan, or at least in the town and university where i was, everyone had plain umbrellas, the transparent ones you could get in the convenience store or collapsible ones from muji. but cute character umbrellas were just... not done. so not cool.

These let-make-everyone-feel-inadequate lists not unique to women's mags btw - the likes of Esquire and even Popular Mechanics frequently publish, say, "25 Things Every Man Needs to Know" (#1 on Esquire's list: skinning a moose. Yeah, i really need to know how to do that), or "31 Things Every Man Should Own" ("Road Atlas - the man who only uses a GPS is half a man"). Here's ''75 Skills Every Man Should Master'' (#25: "Drive an eightpenny nail into a treated two-by-four without thinking about it"). And act your age: "Things a Man Should Never Do After the Age of 30" - (#27: "Break up with a girlfriend by e-mail").

Actually, you shouln't do that after the age of 14 ....

let- = let's-

why would you want to go *back to* an ex b/f if he 'reminded you how far you've come'. what horseshit.

i mean lad's mags are no better obv but .. gimme a break

Much as I agree that this list is horseshit, I think you're misreading that one. It means two separate exes. One who you could imagine going back to. And another one who reminds you how far you've come.

Not sure if anyone's already said so but this list is as OLD AS THE HILLS, I have seen it appear and re appear in Cosmo, newspapers, Facebook posts and so on for a long time.

And it still blows.

this list is as OLD AS THE HILLS, I have seen it appear and re appear

Welp, AOL bought HuffPo for ~$365 million to provide it with more content.

30 lists every IPO buyout should publish on its website before 30 days

Yeah trayce I said it earlier. I have seen this list many many times. Didn't realize it at first but was then like hang on a sec!

Ah sorry! I skimmed the thread before I posted that :(

confession: I bought the official umbrella that was used in rihanna's music video

omg this is my favourite thing about this thread by far!!!

also everyone who isn't 30 yet, don't worry about being 30!!! worry more about not being an asshole in life!!!

otm

Worry about letting things you want to do slide without DOING THEM, you will regret it I say!!! DOnt think "I can do that later/when I have more money/when I have time". Carpe the damn diem.

I've done most of the man things, but I have never thrown a punch ;_;

I threw a punch! Since I'm a woman and don't need to have done that, you can have mine.

It was a friend of my husband's at a NYE party. He lives out of Canada and always treats me like a toy when he comes home to visit? I had enough of him swatting at me for a reason I can't recall, so I punched him. He got all bent out of shape about it even though he'd pawed at me 30+ times over the course of the evening!

anyone posting here who poo-poos the Esquire list should re-read #6 and feel slightly ashamed

list weak like clock radio speakers

the kiss thing only gets to me because it seems to imply that you shouldn't *have* to use your words, and that verbally expressing your desire (or lack thereof) needn't occur because -- uh, women need to be wily masters of non-verbal communication? by the time they're 30? idk, it just feel like it's the male-active vs female-passive thing again. women as subtle manipulators, men as sexual agents.

men as sexual agents

this is the best job interview ever btw

god forbid you want sex enough to actually say it. xp

lol dan

from the man no do >30 list:

41. Use Internet acronyms, especially ROFL and LOL.

otm

i used to subscribe to esquire in college. i must've been insecure about my masculinity (i was). it is truly one of the worst magazines.