And now, hot pink jeans with studs down the side, and rhinestone-studded acrylic nails

Everyone loves my $10 sweater from the Bronx.

One day I was teaching a class in the Bronx, and by the time I left work around 7:30pm, it was freezing, and I was wearing this strapless sari-type thing. I had to head straight from work to a party, and knew I'd be doing a lot of walking, so I headed up the strip (on Jerome Ave, at the very end of the 4 line, where fashionistas dare not tread) to the $10 Discount Store.

I figured I'd buy something warm and awful, and even if I only wore it one night, well, you pay $10 for a martini, and I'd get at least as much value out of being warm for several hours.

As it turns out, this store must have had twenty different styles of $10 sweaters, each in about five colors. It was a plethora of sweaters. I found the only small I could, a burgundy sweater with an asymmetrical series of buttons up near the neck, and now I get compliments every time I wear it.

Maybe I could start a personal shopping service wherein I cart great bargains home from the Bronx and resell them to Upper East Side women.