MANICHAEAN
10-28-2012, 09:13 PM
The Billionairess.
These have been hard times of late for many folks. The downturn seems unlike anything I've seen since the fuel hike crisis of 1973. My friends are fired from long-time jobs, their houses are underwater in debt. Pensions are threatened by the corporations and the Democrats. Health care is a myth. In fact, the world is supposed to end in 2012 and many people are anticipating the apocalypse almost with relief.
One autumn weekend I couldn't take any more bad news on the channels and so fled the city for an invite at an upstate function. My good friend Gene picked me up at the train station and we drove to a mansion overlooking the Hudson valley.
Dinner was at sunset.
Ten people were at the table. Three billionaires and four exceedingly well-off scions of famed wealth. Gene, his wife, and I were the representatives of the other 99.99% of humanity.
Sandy, an ageing brunette was the hostess. She had a good heart and invariably laughed at my stories. I'd met her before at other venues and she liked introducing me as "the entertainment."
The banker two seats along with his stunning trophy wife asked what business I was in?
"I'm a writer," I replied, admiring his wife 's cleavage.
I was willing to indulge in any foreploy, or misrepresentation about myself to get laid by that one.
Over the years editors and agents have asked for a definition of my writing. Corporate executives like neat niches. I tell them the easy answer, "Semi-fiction."
"What 's that?" is the usual response.
"Whatever is interesting is true," I reply. "My tales are a melange of truth, demi-truth, and outright fabrication."
I could not but reflect inwardly that the same goes for my grammar and the words I conjure up. But right now I was terminally cool and like most native English speakers, light years ahead in the educational tome of my depravity. The education had been extensive. My de-education even more so, for I had come to realise that anyone knowing all the answers hasn't heard all the questions.
Anyway, as is the tradition at such dinner parties, where wealthy guests are in ascendent numbers, money breeds talk about money. Thus it was almost inevitable that Sandy was soon asking me regards my own financial status.
"I've had better years and worse years, but luckily I've got a publisher interested in my latest work," I replied.
"Really?" Sandy asked with interest. Her wealth was nine zeroes long.
"How much would you expect to get for it?" Her eyes batted like butterflies on speed. Sandy had once been an Olympian equestrian and the beauty still held on her flesh.
"$1.4 million." I had to come up with a figure to impress in such material company.
"Oooooh, so much." Sandy frowned with a disapproval based no doubt on a lineage traced back to the Pilgrim Fathers.
"I just canceled my shopping trip to San Francisco, because I decided it wasn't prudent to spend money in this economy," she said knowingly.
"I don't follow," I replied, remembering my early learnings in Keynesian economics.
"Well I lost 20% of my wealth in the last four months. Mind you I'm still as rich as I was when I inherited my money, but I've decided to be prudent."*
Tears misted her eyes at the prospect.
"I have to be responsible," she said.
Gene's wife kicked me in the leg before I got started on the entire idea of the trickle-down theory, where the rich would become really rich and then spend their money like lottery winners in order to make everyone else richer.
I glared at Sandy, but took a deep breath and said, "I think that's a good idea that you set a good example of economic prudence for the rest of the rich. Save and then other people will save, maybe even the middle class."
The sarchasm lay between us.
"Yes, I'm doing my part to increase the flow of economic prudence."
She leaned over to whisper, "You don't have a line of cocaine, do you?"
"I do." It was a lie, but sometimes a lie is better than the truth.
"But it wouldn't be prudent for you to do any. I have to think of my finances too. Thanks for the inspiration."
I left the table and went straight to the bathroom. All the males followed suit. They were disappointed to hear I wasn't holding drugs. Outraged in fact. I almost thought they wanted to strip-search me. I wasn't having any of that and went into the cubicle. I faked snorting several lines and returned to a scornful table, wiping my nose.
It did not matter. I had already concluded that the revolution obviously should begin when billionairesses stop spending money.
These have been hard times of late for many folks. The downturn seems unlike anything I've seen since the fuel hike crisis of 1973. My friends are fired from long-time jobs, their houses are underwater in debt. Pensions are threatened by the corporations and the Democrats. Health care is a myth. In fact, the world is supposed to end in 2012 and many people are anticipating the apocalypse almost with relief.
One autumn weekend I couldn't take any more bad news on the channels and so fled the city for an invite at an upstate function. My good friend Gene picked me up at the train station and we drove to a mansion overlooking the Hudson valley.
Dinner was at sunset.
Ten people were at the table. Three billionaires and four exceedingly well-off scions of famed wealth. Gene, his wife, and I were the representatives of the other 99.99% of humanity.
Sandy, an ageing brunette was the hostess. She had a good heart and invariably laughed at my stories. I'd met her before at other venues and she liked introducing me as "the entertainment."
The banker two seats along with his stunning trophy wife asked what business I was in?
"I'm a writer," I replied, admiring his wife 's cleavage.
I was willing to indulge in any foreploy, or misrepresentation about myself to get laid by that one.
Over the years editors and agents have asked for a definition of my writing. Corporate executives like neat niches. I tell them the easy answer, "Semi-fiction."
"What 's that?" is the usual response.
"Whatever is interesting is true," I reply. "My tales are a melange of truth, demi-truth, and outright fabrication."
I could not but reflect inwardly that the same goes for my grammar and the words I conjure up. But right now I was terminally cool and like most native English speakers, light years ahead in the educational tome of my depravity. The education had been extensive. My de-education even more so, for I had come to realise that anyone knowing all the answers hasn't heard all the questions.
Anyway, as is the tradition at such dinner parties, where wealthy guests are in ascendent numbers, money breeds talk about money. Thus it was almost inevitable that Sandy was soon asking me regards my own financial status.
"I've had better years and worse years, but luckily I've got a publisher interested in my latest work," I replied.
"Really?" Sandy asked with interest. Her wealth was nine zeroes long.
"How much would you expect to get for it?" Her eyes batted like butterflies on speed. Sandy had once been an Olympian equestrian and the beauty still held on her flesh.
"$1.4 million." I had to come up with a figure to impress in such material company.
"Oooooh, so much." Sandy frowned with a disapproval based no doubt on a lineage traced back to the Pilgrim Fathers.
"I just canceled my shopping trip to San Francisco, because I decided it wasn't prudent to spend money in this economy," she said knowingly.
"I don't follow," I replied, remembering my early learnings in Keynesian economics.
"Well I lost 20% of my wealth in the last four months. Mind you I'm still as rich as I was when I inherited my money, but I've decided to be prudent."*
Tears misted her eyes at the prospect.
"I have to be responsible," she said.
Gene's wife kicked me in the leg before I got started on the entire idea of the trickle-down theory, where the rich would become really rich and then spend their money like lottery winners in order to make everyone else richer.
I glared at Sandy, but took a deep breath and said, "I think that's a good idea that you set a good example of economic prudence for the rest of the rich. Save and then other people will save, maybe even the middle class."
The sarchasm lay between us.
"Yes, I'm doing my part to increase the flow of economic prudence."
She leaned over to whisper, "You don't have a line of cocaine, do you?"
"I do." It was a lie, but sometimes a lie is better than the truth.
"But it wouldn't be prudent for you to do any. I have to think of my finances too. Thanks for the inspiration."
I left the table and went straight to the bathroom. All the males followed suit. They were disappointed to hear I wasn't holding drugs. Outraged in fact. I almost thought they wanted to strip-search me. I wasn't having any of that and went into the cubicle. I faked snorting several lines and returned to a scornful table, wiping my nose.
It did not matter. I had already concluded that the revolution obviously should begin when billionairesses stop spending money.