The more money people have, the more they think that they need things, that they are even deserving of things. Be it a bigger house, a ridiculously expensive car, luxury holidays and so on. To a certain extent, I get it: if you have more money to spend, you can spend it on more luxurious things. Fine. But since living in Luxembourg I have come across quite a few people that have no idea how ridiculous they sound when they talk about their ‘needs’. They have come to mistake their luxury habits for needs and basically have lost all sense of normalcy.
A lady I know had stressed about her trip to Cambodia because she wasn’t sure that the Hermès slippers she had ordered would arrive in time and whether they would match the dress that she was planning on wearing during their eight-course dinner on a private yacht that they had booked. I had to walk away as to not explode in front of her. Please, please, please refrain from mentioning things like Hermès slippers, private yacht and eight-course dinner in combination with Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. It’s so embarrassing, even writing about it makes me cringe.
An acquaintance of ours proved he was lost when he was telling my husband and me about his favorite champagne. It was utterly expensive (which was probably the main reason that he loved it so much). When he noticed that his money talk was wasted on us, he moved on to more ‘substantial’ arguments, cumulating in one that stuns me to this day: the bubbles in French champagne are smaller than the bubbles in Luxembourgish crémant, thus giving a more comfortable tingly feeling on the tongue… What the bleep? This to me is the total loss of all things normal, the epitome of decadence. Half the world is dying of hunger, and you dare so much as to even mention the size of bubbles in champagne?
When she was twelve, our daughter was laughed at in school upon returning from the Christmas holidays. Apparently, she was the only kid in her class that had not gotten a Christmas present from the Apple brand. Or what about being mocked by her friends when they were nine because she had only been on an airplane once in her life? Or a lady who had difficulty deciding whether to buy three or four closets for her babies’ clothes at 2,300 euros a piece? The list of this sort of madness is endless. Hand me a bucket, please.
I know, I know. Live and let live. Do not judge, lest you be judged. I have a comfortable life with a solid roof over my head, nice food on my plate, warm clothes when it’s cold and sun dresses to wear when I am on holiday. I too have certain things I indulge in like buying fresh flowers occasionally, or going out for lunch sometimes, which to me is a luxury. So I should not write about the luxury outbursts of others, maybe? Well, I disagree.
Yes, you can ridicule and ostracise me the minute I start worrying about some designer outfit not being packed for my crazy luxury holiday in, I don’t know, Sudan, or that the foie gras on my plate does not seem to have the exact amount of duck fat. But as long I still make the difference between needs, even if they’re a bit ‘extra’ or a little more luxurious, and ridiculous, decadent, obscene tastes that turns someone into an insensitive bastard, please allow me to have my way and ridicule those that no longer can make that distinction.
