Times sure are tough during this pandemic. How long has it been going on now? A couple years?
Try two measly months. That’s all? Really?
Anyway, we sent crackerjack reporter Carrie Thompson traipsing through the snobbiest neighborhood in town to see if the local elites had suffered any devastating setbacks like having to lay off the gardener and do their own pruning. She didn’t find anything that barbaric, but she did spot one checking his own mail.
“I never thought I’d stoop this low,” bemoaned trust fund recipient, Neil Wellington. “The butler just walked out, saying he needs to be with his family right now. Things could be worse, though.”
“How do you mean?” pressed Thompson. “I can’t imagine too many fates worse than collecting one’s own mail or hearing that a servant chose his wife and children during a global crisis.”
“Well, take that neighbor across the street,” Wellington explained. “Calls himself an investment banker or something. To my thinking, banks give me money. I don’t give it to them, but whatever.
“I thought he was doing alright in spite of that,” he continued. “He attends all the same lame charity auctions I get roped into. My accountant tells me throwing a couple hundred thousand at a few causes I couldn’t care less about beats paying taxes, so I endure them. I assumed he was just playing the game, too.
“He always bids really high on wine lots and paintings and overseas travel packages—never quite pushes the number up there high enough to win anything, but he sure impresses us all with the way he almost supports so many losers.”
“Yeah, sounds like quite a stand-up guy,” chimed in Thompson, feigning comprehension.
“Well, it turns out that son of a bitch is really hurting. The signs were all there. I guess I just missed them. He drove a Tesla for goodness sake. The fact he didn’t have a driver was bad enough, but that’s not even a European model.”
Honing right in on the crux of the issue, Thompson probed, “Why’d you use past tense in describing his car?”
“Huh? Oh right,” Wellington said, recalling his point in between sips of scotch on the lawn. “Because I bumped into the poor bastard last week. I was making this dreadful mail march, and he was watching the glorified Prius be repossessed.
“Can you believe he had a loan on that beater? Now there’s no doubt this neighborhood has gone to hell in a handbasket. I wouldn’t even be surprised if a few of these nouveau riche have mortgages.”
“That’s truly awful,” declared Thompson, doing her best to commiserate while wondering if she could even qualify for one (and also if all rich people use words like ‘nouveau’).
“It sure as hell is. Wonder what’s next?” pondered Wellington. “I suppose soon I’ll hear about one of these common folk enrolling their kids in public school. I guess nothing’s sacred anymore.”
“I just never thought I’d see the day when a neighbor of mine would need a paycheck. Don’t they understand the concept of compounding interest anymore?”
Suddenly, Thompson understood his point.
“I get it now!” she exclaimed. “Two months really isn’t very long at all. The only way you lose everything that fast is if you never really owned any of it in the first place.”
“Indeed,” confirmed Wellington. “And your parents certainly didn’t own it either.”
Chuck Miller writes stuff on platforms for people with dubious credentials. Visit https://www.whatthechuuuck.com/ for more of his nonsense and one thing that makes a lot of sense: his children’s picture book about a little girl striving to overcome developmental delays, Will Little Roo Ever…?.