I’m supposed to be writing about luxury. My first paid writing assignment is on a topic so far removed from my reality it would make my editors scream in panic. So I try and take a slanted approach, what luxury means in the present economy, blah blah blah. Then I write a cheeky Christmas gift-guide by presenting ludicrous selections: Italian truffles, a bottle of perfume for $215K, champagne for $50,000 a pop. Extreme gift-giving, absurd suggestions for the person who has everything. Surely no one would take me seriously ... except, of course, someone does.
Luxury for me these days entails whether or not I should use two eggs in my tuna salad instead of the usual one ... I ponder this dilemma over and over while washing out the last zip-lock bag to re-use. Luxurious decisions of whether to spend my last ten dollars on a gallon of milk, more zip-lock bags, gas, cheap wine or cigarettes, and I go with the cheap wine and cigs every time. My extravagance is embarrassing. But I will say that I have become quite adept at finding really decent cheap wine. I am forty-three-years-old and my mother is sending me care packages ... she does not know about the wine and cigarettes. As for bills, I laugh hysterically as they fly into the wastebasket. I used to be very diligent about those pesky life details. So much has changed during this Great Depression, I have become a resourceful moocher, dating men with good jobs so that I get at least one decent meal a day. And with a somewhat straight face, I can convince most anyone that I am doing well these days, no worse than the rest of the world in these lousy economic times. No one needs to know that I am stealing Splenda from the library cafe. If there was a most-wanted file for debtors, I would list at the top, the reward for any information on my whereabouts would place someone in a different tax-bracket. No, I really shouldn’t be writing luxury articles in any shape or form.
