Calabasas

Home of neurotic lying scum living beyond their means.

Soon to be depopulated by a wave of McMansion foreclosures. The boutique clothing stores are soon to follow, once people stop buying overpriced schmattas to impress their neighbors. Next will be the repossession of the leased Range Rover and Mercedes.

Life in Calabasas means a constant attempt to pretend to your neighbors, temple and fellow parents (or anyone within earshot) that you are doing better than you really are, that you make more money, are wealthier, smarter and have more power and social standing than the next schlub.

Here is a user's guide to living in Calabasas:

Be pushy and aggressive and others usually will roll over.

When in doubt, sue, or just do it anyway to get your own way.

Get dirt on people to hold over their heads, because they are doing the same to everyone else.

Rampant gossip circulates in nanoseconds because there is no honor among the douchebags, yentas and bubbes that hover like vultures at schools, malls, gyms, nail salons and coffee bars to dish on everyone.

The sly ones pump maids, gardeners and security guards for information on everyone. Non-Hispanics don't realize that there are no secrets when se habla Espanol.

Schadenfreude is the local contact sport. After all, it could by you next so why not enjoy another's problems?

Parents exaggerate and lie about their children - theirs can do wrong, so it must have been somebody else's kid, and probably yours, that did something unspeakable.

Teachers and school administrators may be bribed or bought off by daily Starbucks deliveries and prepaid standing appointments for their mani pedi at the local salons. They also respond well to overpaid tutoring engagements to supplement their salaries off the books (no checks, please).

School grades are negotiable and are always inflated when talking with other lying scum. Nobody calls anyone out on anything because they are all complicit in the fantasy and denial.

Is it less expensive to keep up appearances than to go to therapy?

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