I missed my chance at being a debutante since I was born 1) poor, 2) in a place where that sort of thing wasn't part of the social fabric and 3) a dude. Inland Southern California in the 1980s, people knew you were of-age and had money because your parents graduated you from a 50 cc to a 125 cc dirt bike. I wish I could say those were unlikely or uncommon in the trailer park(s) I lived in, but people like us on food stamps prioritize their spending however they see fit. My (very brief) step-dad parked his T-top Camaro under that carport cover next to the double-wide every single night. Draw your appropriate conclusions.
I'm also not Jewish, so no bar mitzvah. Catholics have confirmation, but the social arrival aspect and party culture around it are basically nonexistent, plus I wasn't confirmed at the typical time anyway.* Essentially, if it isn't a rebranded pagan blood-ritual holiday, there's no Catholic celebration around it.
So this is my one and only chance, to let all of you know that I am out here and I am a very, very fancy person. Nothing really material has changed in my life. If anything, I've gotten slightly more poor since I changed jobs starting in April at a marginally reduced rate of pay from the job I left. I drive the same car, approaching 10 years old and 150,000 miles now. I haven't had any gold added to my teeth for either structurally necessary or aesthetic reasons. I haven't done anything embarrassingly, ostentatiously wasteful or financially destructive that screams MIDDLE-AGED DOUCHEBAG without having to think about the cost, like cheek implants or buying a Cybertruck.
Nope, the only thing that has changed is that I now live in a mansion. It's the exact same house I've lived in for 21 years, in the same neighborhood. Still a 1997-built 2,000-square-foot tract home in a nice-ish area of a very unfashionable Greater LA exurb. But what are the characteristics of a mansion? 1) When you tell people what you can sell it for they reflexively go "shut the fuck up, really?" and 2) it has way more rooms than the people (person) living in it could actually ever use. Guys, that's totally me!
Last Sunday my oldest moved out into his own apartment (third floor, no elevator. Good fucking thing I work out), so here I am, wandering these spacious halls all on my lonesome, between four bedrooms and three bathrooms, not to mention the living room, dining room, kitchen and family room, just straight ghoulin' like a restless spirit locked to this plane of existence by a mummy curse or some shit. But no, that's a bad metaphor, because finally being an empty nester doesn't AT ALL feel like being dead. It feels like everyone else died and left you here to figure out the whole rest of your existence and/or rot.
But rotting in style in this big mansion-y house! In the old days (up until like 2017 maybe) you would think about downsizing to fit your lifestyle, but for the very same reason my potential resale value sounds so impressive, leaving this place is kind of not possible. If I sold it for whatever equity I have in it, I could basically afford to buy another place of about exactly this size, for a worse interest rate and probably overall a higher mortgage payment. The same real estate market that makes me on-paper rich-seeming has also trapped me here like Edmond Dantès at the Château d'If, but with no Richard Harris to teach me about, like, philosophy or whatever so that I might exact vengeance upon my enemies. At least if I had blood enemies, I'd have a bit more focus. That's a major regret I just realized, I've never really been Meaningfully Wronged. I figure with my new fancy status, I'll start making way more treacherous friends.
As for what I'm going to do with my state of being as a pampered one-percenter, well, I've got big plans. One of the old kids' rooms is going to be an office. The whole remodel is going to cost upwards of $200 (depending on if I wait for paint to go on sale)! The master bedroom.. well, that's where I sleep, so that's gotta stay like it is. But the other two bedrooms, boy, look out, those are really... um... gonna be... uh... well, right now they are reminders that I need to think of two hobbies that require their own rooms. Hang on, I have to go look up how much harpsichords cost. I don't know what actual fancy people do in the 21st century, except have pictures of themselves leaving the gym posted on gossip websites, which doesn't help me redecorate at all. All I really have are parlor entertainment scenes from Jane Austen novel adaptations into film, those all seemed pretty fancy. I'll just do that, though you're going to have to give me enough time to get the accent down. If Dakota Johnson could do it, so can I.
---
*For some reason my now-ex-wife decided she wanted to convert to Catholicism after we got married, so I went along to her classes and completed my confirmation requirements at the same time, in my late 20s. And then stopped going to church entirely like a couple of years later. I blame God, though, if He wanted us to stick around, He should have been more compelling. And not imaginary.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment