White Trash Living...

Shopping, traveling, cars we call our own, & a condo a mile from the ocean…just divine. But the sound of all this is deceiving. Life in California has not always been as picturesque as a day at the beach.

Let us take you back in time (about 5 years ago to be exact); to a different city in California. Long Beach. In a very yellow house.

This is where we resided in a 2 bedroom and 1 sort-of bathroom. Don't let the looks of this place fool you, we only rented the front small left corner…it was sectioned off into 2 other units. We also had an additional roommate, we'll call her "Margarita," after one of B&W's favorite drinks! Margarita lived in the "master" bedroom that was connected to the only bathroom in the house. This was an extra challenge all on its own as the bathroom sink and mirror were located IN her bedroom. This typically left us brushing our teeth & washing our faces at the kitchen sink, while waving to the neighbors walking their dogs or leaving for work... they peered in at us with disbelief, pity and straight-up horror.

We also had to share a bedroom... with only one mattress… that depressingly laid directly on the floor. In addition, our room was the size of a cubicle lined with boxes and a closet that was built for midgets. In order to even get to the closet you had to step directly on the mattress, as there was no room for any walk-way or any other furniture for that matter. Well no furniture, other than the ever so important make-shift "hair & make -up stations".... Since we didn't have access to the vanity in Margarita's room, we had to make do with a full length mirror propped up on the floor, aka the "hair station." This is where we styled our tresses and checked out the outfits we had put together (which in hindsight were hideous). Meanwhile the other person would sit on an office chair and place a hand held mirror amongst the boxes to finalize their bonne bell look at the "make-up station." Once the tasks were accomplished, we'd yell switch and walk across the mattress to swap stations. No bueno folks…no bueno.

OK, moving onto the family room. Lets just say we brought the beach to us. Literally. Since the couch Margarita received from her mother-in-law couldn't fit through the 18th century size doors on our piss yellow house, we had no choice but to use very posh $3.99 beach chairs from Big Lots to watch TV on. And since the couch didn't fit inside, we left it on our front lawn…some neighbors complained it was an eyesore, we merely saw it as an extra large welcome mat. We also used beach towels instead of blankets to keep warm…dang we were economically savvy! Surprisingly enough, the Big Lots chairs were more comfortable than the stiff, put-it-together IKEA couch we had in its original place. That couch made you feel like you were wearing a straight jacket and demand you visit the nearest chiropractor after spending more than 35 minutes on it... But we digress. Our living conditions really began to rub off on us when we swapped out our standard glass of ice cold milk at dinner for a bottle of Green Light District beer. Its safe to say that by this time "white trash living" had come full circle.

Living in extremely close quarters led to fights that made us feel on occasion like an old odd married couple. For example, Bianca is a very light sleeper, and for a week straight she claimed that each morning at about 3:30AM the fire alarm would start beeping loudly every 10 minutes. Bianca would bring this up to Winter in frustration because the constant beeping not only woke her up, but was giving her insomnia. Winter took one look at her and said "that sucks, too bad you are a light sleeper."

Bianca didn't accept this response and began to go off on a tangent about how the next time it happens she will unmercifully beat Winter over and over with her pillow until she too is up and can share in the glorious misery with her appropriately . Enraged, Winter springs up from the mattress, wheeled the office chair from the make up station over to the fire alarm, balanced long enough to knock the batteries out and watched them fall to the ground. Winter glared at Bianca and stated "if there is a fire you better sniff it out and wake my ass up, I hope you sleep soundly." I guess we could have just changed out the batteries but that would have been too simple…

In case you're wondering how we got around town…well we shared a forest green 1995 Jeep Cherokee for 6 months that Bianca drove from Missouri to Southern California…that's right…6 months sharing a car. It did the job until we had to rely on a plethora of AAA men with tow trucks to jump start the crapper from various parking lots across the OC. Sadly, all the local AAA agents knew us by name. Winter was even welcomed to Sunny So Cal with the jeep dying in the airport parking lot. Good thing Orange County is a safe area, otherwise you might find our faces on the back of a milk carton.

As a final treat we wanted to share a picture of ourselves from back then for a good laugh, but the truth is we couldn't afford a camera at this point in our lives. Actually, this is a blessing in disguise because our fashion sense fell EXTREMELY short from fabulous.

Natty light or Keystone,
Bianca Sass & Winter Smize