Oh, this old thing?
I complain about NYC a fair amount, but here’s an equally annoying snapshot of suburban life…
Walking through a parking lot to my car after leaving RiteAid, and I see a neighbor pull up in a brand new red Mercedes convertible.
So I say to him, “Look at you, and your new sled!” And he says back, “Not a huge deal… Got it for my wife. She wanted a Jeep, but I couldn’t bring myself to buying one of those pieces of shit.”
And that’s where I cringed. This asshole… research sales guy… doesn’t recognize that there are multiple layers of automobiles that reside in the price range between a Jeep Wrangler and a convertible Mercedes. It was just, “Man, these Jeeps stink… Let’s see if Mercedes is still open.”
It was a casual jump from $35,000 to $75,000, and just as casually talked about it to a guy (me) who is trying to sell his semen by the tablespoon at the local stem cell lab.
He went on to explain, “No real backseat, but Christina still has the Escalade, and Duncan is a Senior now, so he takes the Audi to-and-from Pingry, so I just need something to run errands and maybe get me to Crossfit.”
Again, semen by the tablespoon, I’m close to 300 pounds, and my kids’ career paths are headed towards Devry. But this asshole is throwing around Mercedes, and Caddies, and overpriced private schools, and Crossfit like he’s “one of the boys”.
Then I ended the conversation abruptly (because the stem cell lab was about to close), but before I drove off I took the time to reflect not on what I don’t have, but what I do have… Namely a beautiful wife and kids who love me unconditionally. And when you think about it, that’s all that really matters, right?
So I got out of my car, and dug my key into the side of his pretty little suped-up all-wheel drive, and then sped away to jerk off into a specimen jar for $15 an ounce.