It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the Frontgate mailing list.

Frontgate fancies itself the purveyor of exclusivity and panache, “Outfitting America’s Finest Homes Since 1991.”

I don’t know how I got on their list to begin with. I can only assume my address was sold from my subscription to the myriad unread New Yorker magazines that decorate woefully obscure my side tables, coffee tables, car door pockets, guest room, and bathrooms water closets.

I opted-out of many mailing lists years ago. The simple daily routine to fetch the mail morphed into strength training thanks to the deluge of phone book -sized holiday catalogs boasting cornucopian savings purchasing opportunities.

Today? What ho! I was “invited back!” to “Experience legendary Frontgate quality and SAVE 20% on almost everything” in the Frontgate catalog. I was thrilled! My pulse quickened.

Frontgate Wanted Me Back!!!

My eyes narrowed. I looked over my shoulders for “Punk’d!” cameras thinking that surely it was a ruse. Didn’t Fontgate know I’m Catholic?

My mother was very good at was recognizing the elitism (“We’ll take anyone’s money, so long as you don’t tell anyone about it,”) in catalogs and magazines. She was a satire savant and I have no doubt she would enjoy my upcoming critique of Frontgate’s early pages.

The first thing I am always willing to notice I immediately go after in any catalog or media is the gaping absence of multicultural and ethnic representation. In Frontgate, apparently only thin, wealthy, coiffed, dressed, repressed, and clean white people celebrate Christmas and they don’t mention Jesus and eventually dwindle things down to “the holidays” because well, let’s be honest: it’s tacky to mention the reason for a holiday… right?

I didn’t notice anything at first other than just the obvious exclusion of anything other than white people … at all … in the entire 54-page publication. (Just sweep it under one of the several expensive, plush rugs they offer.) In all fairness, I look for those omissions because I think it’s just plain assholic to not include all races and ethnicities in a catalog of purveyors to America’s Finest Homes; apparently they haven’t noticed that the Obamas live in the White House.

But it was one visual exchange conflict between two models in the photo that sucked me in and made me think of Mom, because she really loved this stuff.

Upon further examination, I began my descent into the murky world of fabricated mirth or … depending on the caption writing, just another dysfunctional family moment. It all looks fairly benign and sort of boring… until …

Well, here’s the image, you can look it over and I’ll let you know what did it in for me. You might even want to zoom in…

Besides the pensive and wan expression on the mature sylvan-locked dame (with the empty plate) at the table on the right in her Hermés scarf, I thought “staged … staged … staged…” and then my eye glanced over

Did you guess it?

Everyone’s having a great time at the Wentworth-Fitch house this year…. or is everyone?

What’s up with that exchange in the background between I’m guessing a drunk uncle and his grabby nephew? I saw that and I was all, like, “WOAH! What the what’s goin’ on back there?!”

That little scene is whacked. Druncle’s body language is saying, “Tryit, twerb. JuzGo ferit an’wellsee whadhappnznext. Yew might accidentally bumpintozat rackofribs on zhe table…. Youwoodntwanna go an’ mess up AundCecily’s nize spread now wouldja? It’d sure a beshame if somethin’ t’happen tuh it…”

His shoulders are leaning toward the kid but his hips are turned to the other direction. The torquing waistline in his sweater shows he’s turning AWAY from the kid. The whole thing reminds me of a Henry Hill flashback in “Goodfellas”; in fact I’m convinced that Druncle is an import, if you know what I mean. (WASPs don’t do facial hair, or apparently collarless shirts tucked beneath crew neck sweaters.)

Druncle’s hand is all, “I don’tzhink zo, zport.” or… “You wannago atthis?”

My money’s on the kid. Ten to one he sacks Druncle, makes a blitz for the gift and dashes up the service backstairs to tear into the prop.

So then my eyes started bouncing around the image. Like Gollum, I was possessed, Find more flaws, find more flaws… more weirdness…

The little boy at the table in the far left margin of the image is curious. The little girl, also an import because she’s just not blonde enough, is trying hard to make eye contact with him, but he is drawn to the woman who loves the baby more than she loves him.

I wasn’t convinced entirely that this was an Oedipal moment. It was something more… His expression reminds me of something… I got out a ruler and tracked his eyes gaze and they seem to end right at the woman’s right elbow or perhaps the sugared plums … but no. Upon even further examination (see, if Mom were here we’dve figured it all out sooner, but I’m doing this in the moment with you, so you have to bear with me), with a clear ruler and the adroit eye of my eldest, the sarcastic teenager Thing 1, we look again, and that kid’s honing in on the cake stand. It’s all about the cake, not Jesus, this Christmas.

Sadly, that kid and the cake just doesn’t keep me.

It’s that image of the kid and the d-bag uncle in the background. Even the chunky-thighed stiff baby and the impossibly slim model (mother of the sixth-month-old) doesn’t hold me for long. When I was nine months postpartum with Thing 1 at a Christmas celebration, I did NOT look like that. I was wearing a nursing dress or fat pants and a nursing top (much to the chagrin of my mother-in-law, she didn’t really get why I chose to breastfeed my kids; it irked her that she couldn’t give them a bottle to feed them, but the last time I checked, these were my kids — wait, have I gone in an unintended direction? Ahem, back to the catalog) and I can tell you with utmost certainty, my hair was not brushed. Nor most likely, were my teeth. I can recall this however, that my brother said to me that my boobs were huge … still.

But I definitely would’ve been wearing a cardigan. Or a zip-up hoodie. Or a bathrobe. Or completely absent from the photo.

The chairs in the image are foldable and are nicer than any dining chair I possess. At the ‘exceptional’ sale price of $100 each, they better be.

Later pages of the catalog show more white people enjoying things together. It looks like Blair needs a healthy G&T to get through a game of fancy Scrabble with step-daughter Chutney during compulsory Big Girl Time while Daddy is fox hunting with Skip.

Don’t worry, that satchel isn’t Blair’s handbag, but a prim little faux leather accessory of the fancy Scrabble set, sure to be an heirloom that you’ll want to keep on display all throughout the year (or at least when company comes over), according to the editors at Frontgate. At my house, we keep our Scrabble letters in the plastic silver bag that game with our set (which we don’t leave out throughout the year):

And from the Thanking God for Little Surprises department, I found this memento in the same box:

Turn the page, and we find Biff showing young Kip a map where his diamond mine is located.

I like to see all the places where Biff and Kip have traveled. It looks like Vanavara, Russia and lots of hops about Europe, and America’s east coast, and of course Costa Rica (never Panama). Then there was that time they skied in Sweden and froze their asses off in Greenland (what?). Or … oddly, Moosonee, Ontario. No place is better to thaw than Esquel, Argentina, where they checked on their oil refineries.

What a random collection of travel destinations. They were smart though, and avoided all areas of open conflict (and poverty) in the Middle East.

Frontgate does see the irony, I hope.

Here we have The Help (because certainly Blair doesn’t wear jeans and flats on purpose) cleaning the crown moulding:

I just hate it when I can’t reach the dentil friezes and soffit mouldings on my 20′ ceilings. It’s such a drag.

Here we have an image of when my “help” cleaned my kitchen:

Well, that’s it from the Snark Department here at Grass Oil. My dinner is here. From take-out. 🙂

Thank you.