Let’s be clear: Gail Vaz-Oxlade is not anti-princess. In fact, the straight-talking financial guru considers herself one, if you mean a woman who deserves to be treated well. “That sense of being special can keep you going through tough stuff,” says the host/taskmaster of Princess, a Canadian series in its first season on Slice. The term only gets you into troubled water if “you have got the sense of entitlement that’s not earned.”
While Vaz-Oxlade pegs her success rate on Til Debt Do Us Part– her other series, on which she counsels financially dysfunctional couples–at about 85 percent, her Princess pass rate is in the 50-percent range. “They just drained the life out of me, because they were so demanding, so petulant, so unwilling to move forward.” Worried? Here are five signs you’re a princess, according to Vaz-Oxlade.
1. Done Like Dinner “You’ll die if you can’t get your hair done, your nails done, your waxing done. This is something that I just don’t understand: the idea that not being able to get a blowout twice a week is a hardship.”
2. Kitchen Nightmares “Dinner is something that someone else cooks. They go out to eat three, four times a week. If they don’t go out, they can’t even cut a vegetable.”
3. Creme de la Creme “No one should ever have to settle for anything but the best. The very idea that there are people out there who can’t afford to buy a box of strawberries is news to them. ‘I’m not going to buy a box of bruised strawberries!’ ”
4. So Real it Hurts “They believe that if you want to hang out with them, you have to do what they tell you to do, you have to dress to support what they are wearing–I kid you not–you have to pony up money. They believe ‘You have to pay to be with me.’ ”
5. Discount Disgust “They never shop the sales. That’s the s.. t that nobody else wants to buy.”
New episodes of Princess air Tuesdays on Slice, Ch. 33, 10 p.m.
Originally published in Swerve magazine Nov.05.10.
