What do you find tacky? Not kitschy, silly, or cutely raunchy -- I mean what do you find downright tacky or beyond the pale?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2000

Answers

Chipped nail-polish, sandals worn with reinforced-toe stockings, lipstick on teeth, wealthy people who act poor (for example stockpiling cafe sugar-packets and hotel toiletries), hair regrowth in a vastly different colour to the dyed part, dark lipliner with pale lipstick, bucks' and hens' nights, asking someone to pay for something that is obviously beyond their means (like splitting the bill at dinner when one person had lobster and dessert and someone else just had a garden salad), people who say, "are you gonna eat that?" when you're not finished, hosts who start to clean their house before the guests have left (a friend's aunt does this, at her son's christening she started to *vacuum* an hour after everyone arrived. OCD, much?!), people who are consistently late and don't apologize, houses where EVERYTHING matches (funny, isn't it, how these houses always seem to be done up in peach and florals?), stickers saying things like "No Fat Chicks" and "You Can Have My Gun When You Pry It Out Of My Cold, Dead Hand", stilettos worn with jeans, stilettos worn with socks, wealthy private-school kids who try to ride public transport for free (this happens all the time in my city. I mean, geez, you get an allowance of $100 a week, ya stingy little bastard!), mullets, molester 'staches, people who feel the need to wear clothing emblazoned with expensive brand-names and mixed drinks that come ready-made in a can. Really, there's no excuse for these things. You don't need money to have class.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

rude people, lots of rich texas ladies, people who dress their dogs, Paul and Jan Crouch (www.tbn.org).... tho I'm accepting of alot of things...white shoes after Labor Day, chubby girls in skimpy tight clothes (they feel good about their bodies, I could never do that), Tammy Faye.....

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Wow, you said it, lili. Money does not create taste. I find ostentation and pretension really tacky and distasteful. But if someone has nice manners, is truly gracious and kind, I can overlook almost anything, even plastic tits.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Really? Chicks in stilettos and jeans or stilettos and socks are tacky? Huh. I never knew. What about stilettos with shorts or a bikini? Don't tell me that's tacky, too. Damn.

:-)

People who eat non-finger foods with their fingers, especially at your table. People who eat sandwiches but can't seem to keep their damn fingers away from probing the innards of the sandwich, getting mustard all over their fingers, then licking it off, especially at your table. :P

Showing someone the half-chewed food in your mouth (like my former boss used to do).

Sorry, I saw some gross people today. I'll come back later. :-)

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Thought of something else: the Microsoft Windows interface is tacky.

Sorry, but I really like my Mac.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

When people try to impress me by telling me how much they overpaid for something, just to prove that they can afford to do so.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

I really think the tackiest thing in the world is people being mean. Or rude, or whatever you want to call it. And I agree with Jill, it becomes very easy to forgive almost anything when people are well mannered, or kind.

I also think it's tacky when people use words incorrectly, in an effort to sound smart. It's cooler to get your point across without mangling the language, even if you use one syllable words.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Don't forget driving around with the new car sticker in the window. nice!

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Eating with your mouth open. I worked for a place once where the president of the company did this. We're talking about an otherwise very presentable man, who would take clients to a meal and then smack, chew and drool like an uncivilized infant. It was so gross. And no one would tell him, as he did NOT take criticism well.

Undertipping is VERY tacky. I've never worked in a service industry, but I have great respect for those who do. I know I personally would have to haul off and belt someone into next week if I had to endure the crap most of them do on a regular basis. I think anyone who owns one of those little tip cards should be forced to eat it as dessert.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Oh YES, undertipping is terrible! My last boss used to always undertip and she thought she was being a good and generous tipper! I was always horrified to go to lunch or dinner when she was paying (or not, if ya gets my drift).

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Kind of on the undertipping theme -- I think it's tacky when you go out to eat in a group, and when it comes time to ante up, one person either refuses to pay his or her share, or even worse, pretends to pay but secretly stiffs you a buck or two, and then doesn't 'fess up when everyone is like, "We're short three dollars."

I don't mind if people don't want to split it evenly, like if they just had a water and a salad when everyone else had huge entrees or something, but at least pay for what you ate, you know? I have a friend who used to do it all the time, or conveniently "forget his wallet" and then "forget to pay back" whoever covered him. Needless to say, we don't go to restaurants with him anymore.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Roots. Mean people. Dr. Laura. There are a bunch more, but I'm on PBF today(Permanent Brain Fart).

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

I dislike t-shirts that advertise products or say nasty things. Or that have wolves on them.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

Oooh, Dr. Laura is the worst! And I agree about undertipping; it's horrible. What do y'all feel like is an appropriate tip? I'd say 20%,15% if the service was marginal. If that's an outragously tacky ammount I need to know!

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2000

I think it is really tacky when a person starts a topic in a forum and asks for genuine advice or help and one of the first people to respond says something like:You never should have done that to begin with, without offering anything useful to the discussion. That really bugs me and a certain person at a certain other board does that ALL the time. Adding a little smiley face to the end of the useless comment doesn't help either, jackass.

I also think that swearing at work is tacky, depending on your workplace. I hate hearing a particular coworker because she always says things like, shit and goddam to business associates on the phone. These are people she doesn't even know. What the fuck is wrong with people?

-- Anonymous, August 22, 2000

I agree about the tipping. I am a waitress/bartender type so I usually tip a lot but I think 20% is right, and 15% is the minimum.

-- Anonymous, August 22, 2000

Thanks, Joanne, I was getting kinda nervous since nobody had answered my query. Felt myself sliding into tackydom....

-- Anonymous, August 22, 2000

I always tip 20% in restaurants. It usually takes really poor service for me to tip any less.

-- Anonymous, August 22, 2000

lots of stuff is tacky, but I agree that it's the people underneath that matter. I've learned that lots of times there's a reason for many things, too. Driving new cars with the sticker on them? Well I have a friend whose day job is to shuttle new cars back and forth between dealerships. He drives one new car from dealer A to dealer B in the same city (or up to 100 miles away) if a customer wants that car or whatever. It's not HIS car, it has to be delivered in sellable condition, so he can't take the stickers off. Maybe you're seeing those.

-- Anonymous, August 23, 2000

jd2 - I never thought of that. I'll wave at those people now!

-- Anonymous, August 23, 2000

i think its tacky when poeple make fun of me cuz i dont spell or type to good as them.

oh and that b**** michelle who keeps trying to hook up with brett. shes so bovious. i hater her

-- Anonymous, August 23, 2000

"Bovious" - obviously bovine

Good one, floosie.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 2000

I hate when my blinds are not even. If one's open, the other should be open to the same level. I think it looks tacky from the outside if the blinds and the windows of the same room/level are not open to the same height. I constantly yell at my bf for this. He thinks I am being irrational.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 2000

These are a few of the things I find most tacky... line dancing, women who take off their shoes to dance,particulary at someone's wedding. Come on people, show some respect! This is someone's BIG DAY and you clebrate it by tramping around barefoot? Sheesh! Men in sandals baring their big hairy man toes,little girls who are dressed like grown women, parents who yell at or berate their kids in public, white shoes (other than tennis shoes) at ANY time of the year, people who bring their own consessions to the movies and/ or talk through the movie, litter bugs drive me absolutely APESHIT, folks who barge into the elevator before you can get out, any kind of clothing with a brand or designer name emblazoned on it, people who pluck and eat items from the produce section at the grocery with out paying for it, any kind of car with a spoiler on the back is way tacky, wearing rings on more than one finger per hand, the "Money Dance" at weddings is an abomination to good taste, wearing black to a wedding, (sorry, but I cling to my tradtional Southern ways and black at a wedding is tacky and unacceptable!), panty hose with open toe shoes or shorts, when dining at a restautant with booths it is very tacky to let your child stand up, turn around & stare at or talk to the people in the booth behind you, curio cabinets filled with stupid porcelin figurines and other meaningless dust collectors, craft fair ANYTHING, married men who ask you out or shamelessly flirt with you, women who wear their bras too small thereby sectioning each boob into two portions and thus creating the ever popular "four tit syndrome", long hair with big bangs and a spiral perm, guys who wear those hideous shirts like Garth Brooks, driving through a residential neighborhood blaring "gansta rap" for all the little kiddies in the neighborhood to hear, dating co-workers, newscasters who use improper grammar or mispronoucne thing, etc. The list goes on and on, but I am just getting too riled up thinking about it.

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2000

Strumpet, your "big hairy man toes" comment made me laugh out loud! That's the funniest thing I've read all weekend. Thanks!

Okay, I thought of a couple more things. So-called adults wearing T-shirts with such subject matter as fornicating pigs under the banner "Makin' Bacon" - always has been tacky, always will be. Also on the subject of T-shirts, anyone wearing a Microsoft-bashing T-shirt is being tacky. I mean, come on, I'm no fan of Microsoft but you're not impressing anyone with your towering intellect by stooping to such juvenile stunts.

Also, loading software onto your Palm or other PDA that turns it into either a "Gaydar" device or a Star Trek communicator sound-alike... very tacky.

-- Anonymous, August 28, 2000

I think it's tacky when people buy a little house in a subdivision and then build a big gazebo in the back yard. Also, people who purchase a lot in a subdivision and then custom-build a house that looks like a castle are tacky to me.

Subdivisions in which every single house has siding of the same color are tacky, in my opinion.

-- Anonymous, August 28, 2000

Ooh, Gwen that reminds me of something. A friend and his wife were having a house built in a new subdivision several years ago. Well, the building process was a nightmare (isn't it always?), but that thing that would really set him off was the visits to the Color Nazi. There were only certain colors approved by the homeowners association that you could paint your house. My friend wanted something radical: a white house with dark green shutters. The Color Nazi told them white wasn't neutral enough. The closest she could allow was "Buttercreme", "Eggshell" or "Cream". My friend told her he wanted to look at the paint, not taste it, which I thought was hilarious. Anyway, they finally reached a compromise, and right before the house was done the Color Nazi calls back. Seems the neighbor's house had just been painted in "Buttercreme" with white shutters, and so they could no longer use "Buttercreme." It would look too "cookie-cutter." Poor David about blew a gasket, but in the end, they got their white house by special permission of the homeowners association.

Which leads to my point. Homeowners Associations are tacky, or, at least the petty rules they seem to come up with.

-- Anonymous, August 29, 2000

icicle lights,blue eyeshadow,littering,anything confederate flagged,decorating with cows,beanie babies in plastic cases,and anything with Warner Brothers Characters emblazoned on it (and I love cartoons.)

-- Anonymous, March 16, 2001

jd2, I am so there with you on the blind-leveling thing! Makes me nuts.

Tacky things to me are toaster covers (or cozies for any small kitchen appliance), people who just leave a roll of toilet paper on the counter instead of actually installing in on the roll, those "lawn decorations" for Halloween and other occassions that are really just big colored trash bags, stuffed animals on dashboards, white pumps at ANY occassion except if you're a bride, taking home partially consumed foods or beverages that you brought with you to someone else's house for bbq or party occassion (c'mon people, you probably pass a store on the way home...), answering machine messages recorded by the household child (ok, maybe not tacky, but certainly annoying), people who don't return library books, public urination, visible bra straps or slips, greasy hair...sorry...I better stop now.

-- Anonymous, March 16, 2001

oh my gawd, spats, i HATE icicle lights. good call. There is so much more to agree with heartily on this thread, like chewing with one's mouth open (does this include chew noises? or is that beyond tacky, and into nauseating?) and yeah, tip 20% or stay at home ... i'd go on, but i have to run and change my answering machine outgoing message.

-- Anonymous, March 17, 2001

Old ppl that wear glitter and porn star clothes....i also find those porn sites the feature 70+ yr olds pretty darn tacky

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

Guys in oversized pants hanging down to their knees with either their underwaer showing or the butt cracks. Lousy tippers. Loud fuckin car radios. I don't give a shit what you think is good music. Turn your fucking radio down butthead. Rude people. Women who have had poor or too many face lifts. Women with obvious brest enlargements. 5"3" and 42" bust size? Yuck!! Guys with really tight pants who look like they have their extra socks in their crotches. Really fat women in Kmart wearing really sloppy sweatclothes that look like they slept in them. Stupi bumper stickers about guns, women and confederate flags. Men who treat their women like shit and women who don't leave a man when he treats them like shit. Survivor and all other reality based programing. Newscasts that keep shoving their cameras into the crying widows face. And that increasingly practiced spitting out your car window or on the ground. Especially holding you finger on one nostril and blowing a big one out the other side. James

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

But James, girls like the cars that go boom, didn't you know?

Tacky is leaning your scrawny little chicken head way down close to someone who is not in the best shape of her life, and pseudo- whispering "You know, if you didn't eat so many of those potato chips, you wouldn't have that...problem."

Fucker.

Tacky is also commenting on the state of someone's shopping basket at the supermarket. Saying "you'd be so pretty if you lost some weight!" Saying "You've lost twenty pounds? How many more to go?"

On another level, there's the very popular 'get really wasted and slobber down my boyfriend's shirt' kind of tacky.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

Um, Shan, describe old. Cause I may want to change my wardrobe.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

Don't you dare change a thing! :) I was kinda reverting back to Xmas 2 years ago when my BF's grandma went through my purse (and she's not senile, just nosey) and put glitter all over herself...and she's this stuffy conservative woman (who hates me...i'm 22 and she bought me a moo moo, and a gallon of tabu perfume Grrr, and at dinner told me the world was ending on my birthday) who after she put the glitter on walked around all night stiff and uncofortable, cuz she was trying to act young and didn't like it. From what i've read of you Oma, you a free spirit who's totally comfortable with her body (how i'd like to be someday) so keep on doing what ya do :)

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

Thanks hon. Maybe I'm not so old after all. But I am old enough to get away with calling everyone "hon" or "honey" without them thinking sexual harrassment. But most of the time it's because I can't remember their name.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

And I don't go through anyone's purse; my granddaughter goes through mine but then she's only 2.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2001

bugger pickers in public. especially the ones who roll it around their fingers until it hardens, then flick it.

Nail clipping, fingers and toes and the remainder tossed, flicked on the floor, it DOES show up in the carpet.

-- Anonymous, March 21, 2001

tacky is your use of deleting anything you dont like.

censorship. pure and simple.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2001

Tacky is using someone's forum to post trash, insult the participants and host, and forging another poster's name. Then getting mad when their trash is deleted.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2001

I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2001

Who sang the song "He's So Vain (I bet he thinks this song is about him)?

I haven't been a baby for years and years. Also haven't had to kill anyone lately. Thanks for the suggestion.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2001

People who invade fourms to disrupt and be nasty.

Adults who neglect their children. There's a difference between fresh dirt, which I consider healthy, and flithy, entrenched, coated dirt. Comb their hair and wipe their noses before you take them to the store.

30 year old people who speak in the slang of a 20 yr. old.

BTW I'm 40.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Some of the long ansures I didn't read as carfully as I should have before responding. I allow my short attention span too much indulgence. Lazy of me.

I guess I'd have to admite that is something I would judge as," Tacky". Ha!ha! Bad fourm manners!

Gwen, Your fourm and your web site are both entertaining me in my free time. I just started reading (lurking?) here 1mo. ago. You guys are fun to warm up to.

Thank You.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

oh happy day. howz it going laura. you no good witch. you out to know about forum disruptions. you are the queen of it.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

I think that putting anchovies on pizza is extremely tacky. Why spoil a perfect dish by sticking sardines on it?

But, you know, to each their own.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Well, you know, anchovies aren't sardines. I don't like anchovies on pizza very much, but I love anchovies in my Caesar salad! Oh yeah.....mmm.. Did you know that penguins eat anchovies? So the next time you see a penguin enjoying a Caesar salad, you can bet he's got anchovies on it.

Hey, Milla, you know what's a good pizza? Black olives and onions. Mm. Or, back when we ate red meat, my wife and I used to love Pizza Hut ground beef, bacon (not Canadian) and onion. That is something I almost miss from my meat-eating days. Shit, I'd better stop thinking about it... :-)

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Holy mackerel! Anchovies != sardines?!

To be more precise, it is true that a sardine isn't always an anchovy nor is an anchovy always a sardine...but...but...Dave Feldman, in his Imponderables book series, said that there was actually no such fish as a "sardine".

Are you ready for this? There is no such thing as a sardine. You can't fish for it, and you can't buy it in a market. Sardine is just a nickname for any kind of small fish that comes packaged in a flat can. So what are sardine eaters eating? There are over 20 possibilities--that's how many different species of fish could be in there laughing their heads off. In North America, most sardines are small herring. Around the world, different countries prefer other things like anchovies and pilchards. I am not a fan particularly, but I am told each tastes the same due to the similar processing, though texture varies."

If he's blowing smoke / is wrong, then I apologize and I am enlightened.

I still don't want no steenky feesh on my pizza.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Great! That just got added to the lexicon of useless information marching around in my head. No wonder I can't remember my daughters birthday. My mind has a twisted sense of what should be stored and when.

As for tacky, I once saw this guy in a bank that had a gold medallion around his neck of an eagle with its wings spread. I am not kidding when I say it took up half of his chest. Apparently he went for the life-size version.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Ah, well that explains it, then. I live in North America. Still, keep the anchovies off my pizza, but load 'em on my Caesar!

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

I'm sorry, what? I'm still distracted by the mental image of a life- sized gold-colored eagle-shaped medallion on someone's chest. Dazamn.

Hee.

I'm a latebloomer when it comes to salads. I don't, generally speaking, like them. However, I had a Caesar (with cheesy goodness but no feesh) and it was tasty. I also discovered that I could enjoy a plate of field greens* and tangelos with raspberry vinaigrette on top.

Sorry about the useless triviata. If you're like Kelly Bundy, though, that useless information might help you win FABULOUS PRIZES! in The Gwen Show game--see other thread.

Definition of "field greens" for the uninitiated / unwary: "Green weeds and stuff that the chef yanked out of his or her backyard an hour before dinner." Yum.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001