THE UPSIDE DOWN SNOB

“I used to think to be a snob was to have a highly paid job”
I live my life sandwiched between social classes and find myself unbothered by the rich snob. It is an identity worn with pearls, and those that line their cashmere coats with seven figure salaries and right wing sympathies. The rich snob is a frilly snob and prove easy for common folk like me to ignore and even easier to dodge by postcode. “Get back to waitrose” I heckle in my head as the rich snob raises his Guardian newspaper to avoid looking at me.
I can’t get away from the reverse snob. He crosses social classes and walks with ease among us all; the reverse snob stalks me in my favourite nightclubs, boards my train, I meet him or her on brick Lane. The reverse snob is an obnoxious social creation. I watch them looking upon all that’s ordinary with disdain; I see them mouthing “There’s nothing worse than looking the same”, and with their eyes on me I’m ashamed to catch myself shifting uncomfortably in life settings.
Today I’m shopping for vintage clothes, and I’ve taken my grandma with me. At 25 years old I wear my style with ease, I wrote off the need to dress the same for acceptance in my teens. I’m attracted to the doors of vintage stores for the light relief of dressing myself to stand out rather than blend. It’s the satisfying feeling when you extract the perfect cardigan amongst a scratchy pile of wool that gets me here; it’s the reverse snob that mooches at the counter that makes me want to leave.
The sales assistant stands haughtily at the door, comically clothed in a ballerinas cast off tutu and tribute Amy bee hive. Her clear lens plastic glasses do little to correct her limited vision that see me as inadequate. I feel like I should apologise for my high street outfit, that’s only modestly touched with vintage. I wish my shoes didn’t smell so conspicuously new. I spend an awkward twenty minutes browsing where I find myself doubly ignored and stalked by the shop assistant. I daren’t look round but I feel like I’m being scrutinised. I can hear her thoughts like they are transmitting through the LP player that stands in the corner; “She’s different but not different enough”.
At the cash register she treats my grandmother like she was born 90 with sympathetic smiles as my grandma attempts to inject the transaction with some humour. I eye up the assistant’s patterned wool cardigan she’s thoughtfully accessorised with a gaudy broach, and I think of the Oxfam bag my grandmother has just filled up. I stifle a laugh, she’s probably wearing one of her cast offs. I meet her gaze bravely as she rifles through my purchases, I can tell she thinks they are all wrong. If I was less kind I would expose her. I’d tell her I recognised her from school and compliment her on her dramatic weight loss. I keep my mouth shut. A real individual doesn’t care what the world thinks.
A limp hand covered in chunky silver plated jewellery hands me my carrier bag with words she dare not utter aloud; Here’s your bowler hat now fuck off back to Top Shop, and I do.