bitterisataste . . . words and ramblings . . . v.6.0

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

this entry brought to you by wolfmother, "dimension"

One frustrating aspect about being middle class is that, when you think about it, there's a ceiling that you'll hit in terms of goodness of food, and you'll never go past that until you miraculolusly get a bump up in the tax bracket. Unfortunately, that probably won't happen. If you're poor and have no dependents and have no physical or learning handicaps, it isn't difficult to do better-- just get a job, and if it sucks, look for a better one. But going from middle class to rich is a much trickier prospect. And in terms of food, as a middle class person, you take a date to a family restaurant like Outback Steakhouse or Red Lobster or whatever, you order the most expensive meal on the menu, probably something that costs no more than 25 bucks, you order drinks and a dessert, you spend 80 bucks combined and that was the best dinner you've had in your entire life. And at your income, this is extravagant-- you can't have this kind of food with any regularity. Your normal day-to-day meals remain at a certain quality and rarely go higher.

But the thing is, there are tastes out there you've never dreamed of that rich people who can afford to hire cooks or go to a suit-and-tie restaurant on a regular basis enjoy that you'll never experience. They can afford to order the finest salami that costs 40 dollars a pound, or the finest kobe brisquette for 125 dollars. You'll never even get to dream about what this must taste like. There's a chance that it'll taste better than what you're used to but not, like, hundreds of dollars better. There's also a chance you'll bite down and taste sensations you've never experienced. But you'll never get to experience these wonderful new tastes because the absolute best you can do is that 80 dollar meal at The Macaroni Grill.

Now, obviously it's no secret that rich people get to enjoy luxuries that the rest of us don't. That's really the American Dream-- to get rich and enjoy luxuries. But most of the things that rich people enjoy that you hear about are superfluous. They get giant screen TVs, but they watch the same shit the rest of us watch-- there's no secret Rich People Channel. They can buy $500,000 dollar Porshes, but when they drive to work they go the same speed you do-- even if they wanted to tear down the road, the traffic wouldn't permit, so they rarely get a chance to go any faster than you do in your Honda. They have lots of superflous gadgets that make their lives easier, but they're not life enhancing. Their houses are nicer, but provided you don't live in a roch-infested hellhole, one house isn't really any better than the next. Nicer? Sure. But there's only so much enjoyment a house can bring you no matter how large it is, just as stylish clothes don't really make any difference in terms of the experiences you'll have that you'll appreciate when you die.

Food and travel are the only two things that rich people have that no one below a certain tax bracket will ever experience, and between the two, travel is the obvious one most people are envious of. But food is a luxury rich people have that a lot of people who aren't rich don't think about. When people dream about winning the lotto, they say, "The first thing I'm going to do is buy a house and an awesome car," they don't say, "The first thing when I cash that check is eat emu breast meat smothered in clam and shallot gravy with a bottle of slightly chilled Glenvilet Nadurra." Yet we've all driven a car before, we've all lived in a house before-- but what if emu meat with clam and shallot gravy creates a sensation never experienced before?
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on this day last year JERSEY GIRL! NAKED CHICKS! BB KING! UMD MOVIES! on last year's POLARITY!
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with love from CRS @ 7:00 PM

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

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