Granted we were still occupying the best place in cattle class, the exit row; but post-Easter arrivals proved to be double the trouble. Aside from airports crammed with depressed travelers having to return to the real world after the break, now we had to face runway traffic. Seriously, we were on the air for an additional 15 minutes swirling aimlessly and grounded for another 90 because our fabulous country has to share runways with both international and domestic airports.
"I bet the people in first class are dying too," I added, trying not to imagine that behind the curtain which separated the haves from the have-nots (at least in airline miles terms), the upper crust were whiling the time away munching on croissants and sipping champagne. "Well, they’re not dying of claustrophobia, that’s for sure," Marcel whined. "Shut up, we have it good. We just came from Tokyo and besides, being in first class on a short-haul flight is quite aging. I mean, you need to have at least a kid older than seven years old to be there and not look tacky. We’re young and coach is good for us," I huffed, not really sure about the veracity of what I had just said. Let’s face it: I was extremely optimistic and thankful about my current station in life. "Shut up, I’m reading about designer speedboats here," Chut added with a laugh waving those tiny TeNeues picture books that have a cigarette on the cover. We’re such shams, I swear.
Status anxiety. It’s what first-world countries and a small percentage of third-world countries have in common. "It" bags, luxury cars or spangled watches are far too obvious for today’s Nouveau Riche version OX.
"They’re for ‘beginners,’" one of my friends drunkenly purred when she was wasted and looking for a rich husband. I also reminded her that trophy wives have gone from pretty stacked bimbos to Ivy League vixens that don’t have substance abuse problems. She agreed and ordered some water. Time is of the essence when you’re looking for gold, I guess.
"It’s far more competitive now," my friend continued. "Stealth wealth is and has always been the bastion of success. You can’t show it off like a fool. Which I guess makes it easier for the average Joe to mix with the Joneses." "Look at her," my friend continued, pointing to a well-dressed debutante, "she tries way too hard to keep up with the Joneses. It’s dreadfully obvious." I saw what she meant. Heiresses are always a troubled bunch. They always seem to look a little messy and scruffy. They don’t look for husbands, so they don’t really preen. It’s the hubby hunters who always look like a million bucks while looking for literally more than a million bucks. "But what Joneses are you talking about, aside from maybe the one percent of the population?" I asked, remembering what an obnoxious friend once said: "If you’re not rich in New York then you’re not rich." (I can’t believe I actually have friends like these but I really do.) Who are the Joneses? Half of the country’s elite are complete shams: shams in socialite clothing. I added that I ride coach while wearing Pucci  a classic sham move, I thought. "Oh! But that’s very stealth!" my now semi-drunk friend exclaimed. "Pucci in coach is not understated, maybe what she meant by stealth was the actual wealth." She was so going to backstab me at the next party, I thought to myself. "Chanting can you believe she wore Pucci in coach and told me about it? She’s sooooo desperate. I mean, I never buy anything on sale, let alone coach." Sure, sure… By the way, a declaration like this is a classic sham defense mechanism  even Nicole Kidman buys stuff on sale. Who can resist a good sale? If people say this to you, don’t believe them. It’s like how people say they just had a haircut when you compliment them on their good looks when it’s actually a nose job.
I don’t know why people get all funny riding coach. I once saw one of Marcel’s ex-bankers from Singapore suddenly enveloping himself in his Financial Times as I tried to wave like a clown to get his attention.
True, too, for two really snobby shits who have made a career making fun of people for being middle class: I so totally caught them raising their books to their faces as I lumbered through the aisle on a trip to Bangkok. Now this is totally mental. It’s social anxiety breakdown.
If you skim the scum of the earth, loads of them are obsessed with looking like the creamiest of the crop. I actually remember describing insanely rich people as creamy when I was a kid. It’s because the word was always followed by the word rich, even if it was meant to describe milk or a chocolate bar. Creamy is good or at least has very positive connotations. The arrivistes most especially love ridiculous things like thousand-dollar cashmere airplane blankets and cigarette holders made of ebony. Casual trinkets that the common eye won’t pick up on. Like a virus it has spread in curious strains, thus a healthy counterfeiting industry that feeds a thriving warfaring culture (yes, you faux Prada and Chanel lovers, you are carrying blood bags). In the first world, especially LA and Miami, you will notice people live in dumps but drive Hummers.
Why is it so important to be among the Joneses anyway?
Real Joneses have lots of baggage. At age five they’re already paranoid that you only like them for their money. Shams are more fun. I could spend the whole day studying them like a kiwi to a bird watcher hoping to the heavens that they will fly and have a good story for many dinner conversations to come. You try to figure out the holes in their lacquered stories and loops in their behavior. And most importantly they want you to like them  badly. There are different levels of shams. Sham platinums are the most entertaining. Platinum shams want rich people as living and breathing certificates that they have arrived and some mid-income peeps for true adulation. Napoleon even tried to marry up despite his success in conquering countries but was snubbed because of his parvenu status. I mean, it’s quite funny how some dude like Napoleon who nabbed countries in just one lifetime got the raised nose from old, rich flea bags who probably didn’t know how to read and just danced the minuet all day. All this because, in their eyes, Napoleon, pre-Waterloo, had just arrived!
I’ll take a sham over a snob any day, I guess. Whores, sluts, shams  sleazy people are so much fun. Unless, of course, they try to extort my ATM savings so they can buy an "it" bag.
It’s really silly when you see how people obsess over this. I mean, we live in a third-world country with real problems. Is this a defense mechanism for the weak? To create a complex but shallow biosphere to protect them from problems that might actually affect them for real? Like Peter Pan except instead of fairy dust, it’s gold Rolexes? I mean, the cringe-worthy sight of seeing a powdery matron with two underpaid yayas holding her bejeweled leather bag is enough to make you swear off Pucci forever. But is it really bad to want a bit of it? I guess if you treat it like navel gazing, it’s quite okay.
We do need to entertain ourselves, and nothing is better than our own self-directed reality show: "Find the Joneses." Parvenus will always be part of high society whether the stuffies like it or not. And they will be more remembered and sometimes even loved. As I said, disaster is the great equalizer.