As I was gathering materials and enough righteous indignation to bring you another WTF Friday, a light bulb went off.  Surely, I thought, there’s a job out there for me reporting nothing but meaningless trivia.  Plenty of  people seem to be making their livelihoods this way, and I’m sure I could write a compelling two paragraphs about Angelina taking her daughters to an art store.  In fact, I could probably cover that, plus Pamela Anderson’s naked ass, and Lindsay Lohan’s consumption of a Big Mac before noon — which would leave me plenty of time to write about something meaningful — like how a sleazy gossip site like TMZ managed to get a picture of Rihanna’s battered face from the files of the LAPD.   Or the sense of entitlement that goes along with deciding to  re-victimize a woman, and make a few bucks by exploiting her pain.  (No link provided, because I think it’s disgusting, and that a couple of people need to lose their j-o-bee’s).

This edition of WTF Friday doesn’t aim to ask any deep questions, though. Taking the lead from some big, popular publications, we are instead going to ponder the inane and irrelevant with all the lightheartedness we can muster in a world where puffed-up provocateurs like Rush Limbaugh make more in a month than many of us will earn in a lifetime.

Oh yes, I know, my kindred American dreamers.   It’s all about working hard, keeping our noses clean, and paying the bills.  The working-class ethos of my ragtag childhood are ringing in my ears at this very moment.  There’s no such thing as cheap Oxycontin, a free lunch, or a free ride.  People with lots of money work really really hard and make wise decisions.  Just ask newly-minted millionaire Dustin Dibble, age 25.

Dibble had to work (the bottle) really hard in 2006 in order to get drunk enough to fall into the path of an oncoming subway train.  He lost part of one leg, but was so inebriated that he doesn’t even remember falling.  A New York jury recently awarded Dibble 2.3 million dollars after his attorney convinced the jury that the conductor was 65% at fault for not stopping in time.  Dibble stumbled onto the track when the train was about 180 feet away.

Elaine Hess of Florida also recently raked in the big bucks — $8 million of them — because her chain-smoking husband died in 1997 after a forty year habit.   8000 other Floridians are standing in the same lawsuit line, waiting for their slice of a $145B class action award the State won from big tobacco several years ago.  Never mind that these billions could have been used to fund actual health care costs, cessation programs for smokers, and prevention programs — all of which were originally part of several State’s cases against big tobacco.   Instead, let’s make a few millionaires, buy some golf carts, hire a dogcatcher, build a museum… because.  Well, didn’t we just talk about shit garden economics, and the vegetables it grows?

The question on everyone’s mind though should be What Really DID happen to Anna Winthour’s Thumb? If you don’t know who Anna Winthour is, then we’re pretty much on the same page.   I didn’t know either, but my fashion is pretty much limited to tatty sweaters and faded jeans.  In the world out THERE, where the super-riche and fashionable people live, Winthour is the editor of that thick pile of ads otherwise known as Vogue.  The mystery in the fashion world this week wasn’t why women can no longer find jeans without lycra in them, or why Vera Wang designed such hideous clothes for Kohl’s, it was why Winthour was wearing a Band-Aid on her thumb.  This incredibly important story is complete with a slide show, and the relieving news that Winthour miraculously healed — even if the reporter’s emails to Vogue did go mysteriously unanswered.

It might also behoove you to know that “Hillary Clinton’s Glasses Make Rare Appearance in Seoul”.  And yes, thank God, there’s another slideshow.

My point is — we seem to have missed the gravy train, people.  As far as I know, there is not one paid reporter of meaningless news, or multi-million dollar lawsuit winner among us.  WTF? I think some of us may have taken that whole work-hard-keep-your-nose-clean-American-dream thing a little too seriously.

So how was YOUR week?  Any WTF’s you’d like to unload?

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