Money and Envy

Money and Envy

Mostly, their arguments involved money. They had so much money it was laughable to think they could possibly exhaust it during their lifetimes. No matter how much of their money they spent or gave away, it always seemed to flow back - the sum even greater than before. Sometimes they’d fret all night, worrying about all the money they had. How could they possibly get rid of it?

On short trips through town, from behind the tinted windows of their chauffeured, stretch limo, they would watch the less fortunate with envy, wishing they could somehow have just a taste of that world.

On more than one occasion they attempted to slip into the fantastic world of the person down-in-the-dumps. After spending a whole evening tattering their fine clothing, they’d show up at a food bank, shuffle to the end of the line, where they’d inch along for hours in hopes of receiving a free, dry turkey dinner. It was wonderful bliss being among the smelly residents of skid row. Inevitably, though, someone would notice his argyle socks under the frayed hems of his doctored trousers. Or else they’d spot the sterling silver cigarette filter she stuffed the bent butts she’d picked from ashtrays into. Posers, they’d be called -- fakes. They’d be laughed out of line, shooed away by toothless vagrants; dirty hands would clap in loud applause at the revelation of their phoniness.

They tried sleeping on park benches, but even the pigeons perched above them laughed and refused to bombard them with their moist droppings. They dropped beneath city bridges, where on top of cardboard or in the dust, they tried to make themselves as uncomfortable as possible. Someone, however, always showed up with caviar in silver bowls, perfectly charred rib-eye steaks and the finest vintage wine.

They sloshed through the muddy earth at the city landfill. Like the poor and destitute they so envied, they used sharpened sticks to poke the trash, hoping to come up with something rotten and disgusting to eat or wear or sell. But as luck would have it, the booty at the end of their sticks was either fabulous jewelry, fantastic furs, or briefcases of money itself.

After a time they gave up on their dream and accepted that life wasn’t fair. Some people are destined -- almost chosen -- to live miserable and hungry and down trodden. And since nothing they did seemed to diminish them, they would simply have to be content with the great amount of money they had, and try their best not to envy those with much less.