Doors, Pennies, And Whores
I went to work at the Gallery this weekend to escape my family. I spent most of the time trying to train Amy on the new security system. It was installed a month ago, and she still has no idea how it works. After resetting the alarm about ninety times, I realized that home was actually starting to look like a good escape.
Luckily my mother called before I left and informed me to stay the hell away. The guys have been installing a new door at the rental house, which should have taken them about two days, but they're into week two now. When they took the door out, they realized some of the wood around the sill was rotted out, so they had to knock about a foot of wall out. And then they realized that the threshold was slightly off, so they yanked the wood from under the door. That made the floor completely unsafe to walk on, so they had to jack up the beams in the basement, shore up the foundation, and install a new beam at the threshold. Then they found out that the door they bought was a piece of shit (according to a carpenter working on a neighbor's deck, it was the worst door on the entire planet). They didn't bring the door back and get a new one, though. They just jammed the thing in and said a little prayer. It took three days and four grown men to get the door squared up. When my mother called, she informed me that they were in a rather heated argument over whether it was the door, the wall, or the wallpaper which was crooked. She said she'd call me back after the smoke cleared, or she'd be calling me from jail after the police picked her up for multiple homicides.
So I stayed at the Gallery and threw pennies at Amy ever time she ventured too close to an alarm trigger. That was actually kind of fun - it was sort of like shooting a cat with a water gun when they start to claw the furniture. Amy had no idea what was happening to her. Every few minutes she'd yelp in pain, spin around, and find a penny on the floor. She's probably going to develop a fear of small change now, because Kerri watched me peg Amy a few times and then she started "helping." I should probably feel badly about that, but, really, it only gives me a slightly giddy hee! feeling.
I was glad I wound up staying, though, because the coolest Rich Bitch Ice Queen ever showed up and took me out for a late lunch. This lady (Ariadne) is rich beyond rich, and she wanted to celebrate screwing her husband over in their recent divorce. Apparently, he made her sign a pre-nup about two minutes before their wedding began, which said she wouldn't get a thing from him if they split, and she was entitled to everything she brought to the marriage. He didn't have any money then, but he was a attorney with aspirations. Ariadne turned out to be a fucking financial genius and made massive amounts of money in stock speculation. She's incredible. She can read an article about a population explosion of the Argentinean fruit bat, tell you how it will affect global economy for the next three years, and what the most profitable effect will be. So she's a millionaire, and I'm pretty damn sure that by the time she retires she'll be a billionaire. She's only forty-eight, and she can do whatever she wants for the rest of her life. She plays with the stock market because "it's like a big game of Chess, only not as boring." Anyway. Because of her idiot husband's pre-nup, she got everything, and he got the shaft. Wow, there's that giddy hee! again. I'm a bad person, I know...
I love her because she's rich. I love her because she's gorgeous (think Angelina Jolie crossed with the young Catherine Deneuve and add a little exotic twist). But I mostly love her because she's vicious. And not just mean-vicious, but rich-vicious. Smart-vicious. She can totally cut people down with just a look. We were sitting at our table, waiting for our improbably constructed food towers, and some little upstart whore started talking really loudly about Ariadne's necklace, which was a huge tanzanite surrounded by diamonds. Really pretty, and probably worth more than I'll make in my entire life. But the little whore lady was talking to her friends about how it couldn't possibly be real, and how it was just so pathetic that some people had to make themselves feel important yadda yadda yadda. Ariadne was actually enjoying eavesdropping on the discussion quite a bit, but then the whore lady noticed her noticing and was all, "Excuse me," but not in that so-sorry-embarrassed way. More in that mind-your-own-damn-business way. So Ariadne turned back to me and started to say something, but that whore leaned over and said "Excuse me," but this time in a pay-attention-to-my-greatness way. But Ariadne totally ignored her, so the whore lady said to her friends, "Well, she thinks she's much too important to talk to me, doesn't she?" So Ariadne looked over with that flash-freeze expression and said, "I wouldn't engage you as my maid, let alone in conversation." And every table around us did that throat-clear laugh. The woman was absolutely speechless, and her friends looked mortified. They left just as soon as dignity would allow.
A few minutes later some guy showed up trying to be suave. He was all, "Of course the stones are real, I own a jewelry store, so I know about these things." And then he actually said, "I almost pointed out the fact that her breasts weren't real." Ariadne looked up at him and said, "I could say the same about your hair. Please leave." The look on the guy's face was priceless, and our waiter almost bit through his lip trying not to laugh. I want to be a Rich Bitch Ice Queen when I grow up...
Luckily my mother called before I left and informed me to stay the hell away. The guys have been installing a new door at the rental house, which should have taken them about two days, but they're into week two now. When they took the door out, they realized some of the wood around the sill was rotted out, so they had to knock about a foot of wall out. And then they realized that the threshold was slightly off, so they yanked the wood from under the door. That made the floor completely unsafe to walk on, so they had to jack up the beams in the basement, shore up the foundation, and install a new beam at the threshold. Then they found out that the door they bought was a piece of shit (according to a carpenter working on a neighbor's deck, it was the worst door on the entire planet). They didn't bring the door back and get a new one, though. They just jammed the thing in and said a little prayer. It took three days and four grown men to get the door squared up. When my mother called, she informed me that they were in a rather heated argument over whether it was the door, the wall, or the wallpaper which was crooked. She said she'd call me back after the smoke cleared, or she'd be calling me from jail after the police picked her up for multiple homicides.
So I stayed at the Gallery and threw pennies at Amy ever time she ventured too close to an alarm trigger. That was actually kind of fun - it was sort of like shooting a cat with a water gun when they start to claw the furniture. Amy had no idea what was happening to her. Every few minutes she'd yelp in pain, spin around, and find a penny on the floor. She's probably going to develop a fear of small change now, because Kerri watched me peg Amy a few times and then she started "helping." I should probably feel badly about that, but, really, it only gives me a slightly giddy hee! feeling.
I was glad I wound up staying, though, because the coolest Rich Bitch Ice Queen ever showed up and took me out for a late lunch. This lady (Ariadne) is rich beyond rich, and she wanted to celebrate screwing her husband over in their recent divorce. Apparently, he made her sign a pre-nup about two minutes before their wedding began, which said she wouldn't get a thing from him if they split, and she was entitled to everything she brought to the marriage. He didn't have any money then, but he was a attorney with aspirations. Ariadne turned out to be a fucking financial genius and made massive amounts of money in stock speculation. She's incredible. She can read an article about a population explosion of the Argentinean fruit bat, tell you how it will affect global economy for the next three years, and what the most profitable effect will be. So she's a millionaire, and I'm pretty damn sure that by the time she retires she'll be a billionaire. She's only forty-eight, and she can do whatever she wants for the rest of her life. She plays with the stock market because "it's like a big game of Chess, only not as boring." Anyway. Because of her idiot husband's pre-nup, she got everything, and he got the shaft. Wow, there's that giddy hee! again. I'm a bad person, I know...
I love her because she's rich. I love her because she's gorgeous (think Angelina Jolie crossed with the young Catherine Deneuve and add a little exotic twist). But I mostly love her because she's vicious. And not just mean-vicious, but rich-vicious. Smart-vicious. She can totally cut people down with just a look. We were sitting at our table, waiting for our improbably constructed food towers, and some little upstart whore started talking really loudly about Ariadne's necklace, which was a huge tanzanite surrounded by diamonds. Really pretty, and probably worth more than I'll make in my entire life. But the little whore lady was talking to her friends about how it couldn't possibly be real, and how it was just so pathetic that some people had to make themselves feel important yadda yadda yadda. Ariadne was actually enjoying eavesdropping on the discussion quite a bit, but then the whore lady noticed her noticing and was all, "Excuse me," but not in that so-sorry-embarrassed way. More in that mind-your-own-damn-business way. So Ariadne turned back to me and started to say something, but that whore leaned over and said "Excuse me," but this time in a pay-attention-to-my-greatness way. But Ariadne totally ignored her, so the whore lady said to her friends, "Well, she thinks she's much too important to talk to me, doesn't she?" So Ariadne looked over with that flash-freeze expression and said, "I wouldn't engage you as my maid, let alone in conversation." And every table around us did that throat-clear laugh. The woman was absolutely speechless, and her friends looked mortified. They left just as soon as dignity would allow.
A few minutes later some guy showed up trying to be suave. He was all, "Of course the stones are real, I own a jewelry store, so I know about these things." And then he actually said, "I almost pointed out the fact that her breasts weren't real." Ariadne looked up at him and said, "I could say the same about your hair. Please leave." The look on the guy's face was priceless, and our waiter almost bit through his lip trying not to laugh. I want to be a Rich Bitch Ice Queen when I grow up...