The Biege vs. the Unbeige

I recently saw a commercial for Ikea where the the tagline was: “Be brave not beige” and it tickled me a lil. I immediately was reminded of a former roommate of mine. She was super beige! We were total opposites in every way…… personality, hobbies, and décor… she was the beige and I was the unbeige.

She was a twenty-something –year-old total WASP from Long Island complete with a pair of UGGS and Burberry clothing. We met at work and my friend had the great idea of matching us together as roommates since we were both looking to live in Manhattan. I was desperate enough to give it a whirl, not knowing what I was getting myself into (can anyone say Single White Female??).

She took it upon herself to decorate the entire place while I was away on vacation our first week at the place. I mean everything. She put her huge ass country dining room table in our converted living room, leaving no space to do any living. She picked out nice lil beige kitchen rugs, and the ugliest beige shower curtain illustrated with monkeys all over it in olive green…. And of course beige rugs to match, along with you guessed it, beige hand towels. I was mortified…. I am so anti-beige... I love boldness and color….I am social and outgoing, and feisty and fun…. And she was Miss I-read-in-the-dark-with-a-flashlight-in-my-room-on-Sat-nights, don’t-socialize-with anyone-but-my-brother, order-food-without-asking-you-if-you-want-any, leave-you-post-it-notes-with-weird-OCD-cleaning-request-on-my-door, content with being beige. I felt like a stranger in my own apartment, but I sucked it up because in the end I had an awesome apartment on the UES and the closet in my room.

My shacking up with strangers phase lasted that one year, as soon as I could get out of that lease I went running for the hills, of Brooklyn… swearing never to become like her...the anti-social beige lover. As I sat home this past weekend reading Time Magazine and watching the History channel, I feared that I was having boring beige tendencies. Nooooo! I refuse! But then I turned the channel to watch “Old School” and grabbed my bright Lime green Ikea pillow, and all was well again…I am still Queen of the Unbeige!