Very few adults, and I imagine especially very few Northwestern graduates, find themselves living the exciting lives they hoped for in their youth — the anticipated Mark Wahlberg badassery tends to give way to i-banking or med school or all sorts of careers that squash the cool, tough, street-life-excitement out of you. Maybe one day you’ll wake up, only to open your closet to find nothing but suits. On that day you’ll wish you had the balls during college to do some graffiti, join a gang, or steal all the money from a liquor store instead of just a cheap bottle of vodka. But have no fear, yuppies of today and the future, for you still can beef up your toughness as much as your résumé without ever having to leave the financial district. Thanks to some pretentious working-stiff essentials that have been altered to introduce that rough-and-tumble street feel, you’ll finally get that toughness you somehow never managed to find between private school and Northwestern.
Cinder block sugar cubes
If the most dilapidated construction you normally encounter is deliberately exposed brick, then you could certainly stand to have an air of urban disrepair in your life. But if the biggest life risk you’re willing to take is trying a different flavor shot in your morning Starbucks beverage, I’ve got a cleverly rough-hewn gem for you: Sugar Blocks, cinder block-shaped sugar cubes. Molded to be shaped like those weird brick-type things you always see in high speed car chases but never actually encounter in your daily life, you can now feel a little bit more dangerous while you’re sweetening your half-caf low-fat non-whip mocha frap.
The Pipe floor-mounted shower
Remember on really hot summer days in the Hamptons when the public pool was too full or too expensive so you and your friends would cool off by busting open some industrial piping and playing in the spray? No? Well, maybe you saw it on Hey Arnold! and thought it looked fun. Enter The Pipe floor-mounted shower from Boffi. Sleek enough to give you the comforting, homey feel of Ikea-like sterility that you’re accustomed to, it also has industrial elements, such as its floor-mounted and u-bend design and simple steel finish. Best of all, it has that markedly municipal red flower-shaped fixture. I’ll bet you don’t even have to use a wrench to get it open (and just think of how strong you’ll look then!).
Umbuster 2004 brass knuckle umbrella
True gangsters rarely concern themselves with umbrellas; after all, a shower of water doesn’t phase that outrageously cool guy who’s more accustomed to a shower of bullets. But businessmen, wearing business suits with business hair styled with business gel, actually do enjoy some protection from the rain. But lest that betray your street cred, you can avoid any criticism from the wet thugs around you with the Umbuster 2004. This professional-looking black umbrella features a silver brass knuckle set at the base where the handle should be. While it may not be the most threatening weapon when resting on the pale weak fist of the badass-impaired, it definitely makes winning a fight by hitting someone with an umbrella at least a little bit less wuss-looking.
StraightGrillz, corrective grillz
While I seriously doubt the legitimacy of this marketing plan proposal, I fully support its concept. Being an adult with braces is probably as anti-action hero as it gets. It tells the world that you’re probably running a higher risk for drive-by wedgies than shootings. And that reputation will never get you laid. If you’re interested in straightening your smile without reliving the memories of your dorky lifestyle up to this point, Ron Company proposes StraightGrillz, corrective grillz that make you look tough while they straighten their teeth. Look what they do for Terrence, the hypothetical customer on the Ron Company Web site:
“He lives by both the Code of the Streets AND his school’s Honor Code. He may accent this affinity with fangs on his grillz, or, traditional grillz for more formal occasions (job interviews, funerals, and spontaneous photo opportunities that may impact his image on one of many social networking sites). Terrence is an enigma. But that’s the way he likes it. No one really knows him but his woman, assuming he has one or somehow encounters one, and even she sometimes wonders if he isn’t concealing some sort of inner torment involving a shadowy past and dark deeds he can’t forget.”
I’ll bet Terrence has never ordered a half-caf low-fat non-whip mocha frap.
Condom Gun
Okay, you yuppies seeking that real-life excitement you know must exist in the tough, street world where they don’t have an Ethan Allen. It is fairly likely that you have some sort of a sex life. But you might think, as T.I. would have you believe, that sex is better when you have tattoos and chains and enemies and guns. While I will admit that T.I. speaks only irrefutable truths, unless you want to have to explain why your abdomen says “Thug Life” at a Greenwich pool party, you might have to find other options to add a hint of gang warfare-type exhilaration to wooing your woman. Enter Masayuki Takahashi’s Condom Gun, a clever prophylactic carrying case that allows you to load rolled-up condoms into a fake handgun’s magazine clip. Wield with care, but provided you’ve landed yourself the high-stakes badass kind of woman your umbrella and grillz braces have earned you, this’ll be the perfect romantic venture. Assuming you’re not still dating a girl you met at Northwestern.