Aimee Bender's "Off"

Aimee Bender's "Off" is an uproarious exploration of a woman's superficiality and psychosis.  The main character's goal of kissing three men to complete the tri-fecta of hair color intimacy leads the reader through a sequence of irony filled scenes.  The reader's proclamations of her material wealth combined with her cold, detached personality characterizes the seductive indie/progressive woman the likes of my girlfriend of two exes ago.
As I read the story, I kept underlining the main character's conceited thoughts.  For instance, "It smells like a woman, like expensive perfume, but not as rich as me;" Our nameless femme fatale is constantly reminding herself of her superiority in social class to the other people at the party.  These self obsessive remarks are coupled with her declarations of her artistic skill.  Her ability to shamelessly brag about her art allows for a pretty hilarious exchange between herself and the redhead that she kisses first.  The redhead remarks that he remembers the protagonist because she was "the one with the inheritance." She responds by telling him that she was really good at painting as well, and in a drunken moment of misplaced manners the redhead says, "really? I don't remember that." This interaction in the bedroom displays the contrast between the way that the protagonist glorifies herself and the way that others remember her.  This contrast also brings more substance to the tendency of the protagonist to remind herself of her wealth.  I thought her ego compared to everyone else's perception of her allowed for a lot of humor in Bender's story.