As classy as a non-British guy who drops the c-word

Do you remember how little-girl-plays-dress-up Lindsay Lohan looked earlier this Summer as the guest of honor at the Maxim 'Hot 100' fête in her all sorts of rainbow Hervé Léger halter dress?

I can just picture her alongside her LiLo-in-training little sister Allie, deluded but sure, thinking aloud, "This will be the perfect way to show the world just how 'hot' I am."

Every time I see a woman sporting 10 opaque-white stripes across the tops of her toenails, I can't help but think of Lindsay and her technicolor dress. My tendency to immediately associate the two isn't because I recognize between them a shared brand of tackiness (though that is the thought immediately following) but rather that both were the direct result of an extremely misguided pretense.

Teaching a 21-year-old celebutante whose own mother can't seem to tell the difference between trashy and classy why a super tight, super short, super bright mini dress doesn't a talented actress imply is an endeavor for which I neither have the influence nor the patience; clearing up the ubiquitous myth that the most sophisticated way to climb down from the massage chair after a $45-plus-tip pedicure is to have one's toes resemble one's fingers, however, is a duty with which I'm more than pleased-as-punch to be charged.

Habits are hard to break, this I know only too well, but assumed truths, those you've been taught from a young age, those you've blindly accepted and likely passed onto others -- those are the ones you never think to question and that ultimately turn out to be the most difficult to leave behind.

But let's take a moment and look at this picture. I mean, really and objectively look at it. Sure, this isn't the most neatly-applied polish job, the most appealing set of toes or the most elegant pair of lobster-emblazoned grosgrain-ribbon-trimmed flip-flops, but even so, the point I'm trying to make, that the correlation between toes fashioned to look like fingers and high-class is utterly nonsensical, rings loudly and clearly.


And if you need more proof than just, oh I don't know, my opinion, I encourage you to watch an episode or two of the WE Network's can't-take-your-eyes-off-it trainwreck, "Bridezillas." The first tanorexic Long Island bride who demands her ladies-in-waiting spackle foundation over their ankle tatts and adhere to her "Crystal Elegance"-themed wedding with French mani/pedis might not convince you to step away from the stripes of "Birthday Babe," but keep watching, because with each and every class-act thereafter who, without fail, imposes the same nail uniform, you will begin to see before your very eyes the crystallization of a different correlation.

Just sayin'.

So please, join my girlfriends and me in putting a stop to the spread of the oh-so-creepy and oh-so-played-out finger-toes and opt instead for a lovely shade of 'A-List,' 'Midnight in Moscow' (see below) or, for the lower-maintenance among you, the muted Fiji Weejee Fawn or just a simple and fresh, clear-shine.

Your cooperation on this matter would make Monte oh-so-happy.