What Money Cannot Buy-

A friend of mine bought a painting at an estate sale last weekend. The painting was too big to put in her car, so she asked me if I would move it in my truck bed.
I drove behind her through the iron gates of a gated community in a suburb I will simply call" Ostentatia". Every house there was a mansion of perfection, and when I later went on line to see how much these houses sold for, I found several were to be had for an $11,000 monthly loan payment.

There was nothing charming or comfortable or cozy about the house we walked into.The foyer was bigger than my apartment, and the two rooms I saw behind it looked like corporate boardrooms. What would one do I wondered, with all that space? Read? Visit with friends? Do a crossword puzzle?

Or was the point merely to flaunt the money that bought the space and filled it with objects that would be sold at an estate sale when you died- I wondered if the footsteps the walls heard were mostly the maid's, though there was no maid now. Just a caretaker letting people in to pick up the paintings and tables and rugs they had bought.

There was a huge cold-hearted glass top table in the dining room, which had stone walls and was strangely small compared to the other rooms. Or perhaps this was because the table was so out sized. No one had bought it, for it cost many thousands. My friend who is a Have, wanted the table,but said she had no no place to put it. Someone would have to move it, since the old oriental rug under it sold for $2000.00 "as is". "We sent it out to clean it"the caretaker said",but they just could not get the stains out".

And here I found myself on common ground with the dead multi-millionaire whose dog or dogs had wet all over the rug. I cannot get the stains out of my carpet either, no matter what spray can I buy.

It seems that having an incontinent dog is the great leveler. And though in principle, I dislike the rich ,I liked this man a little better(posthumously)for loving his dog more than he did his rug-