Too much money makes baby turn mean?

I work in a rather wealthy suburb of Chicago. Okay, rather wealthy may be an understatement.

I work in a filthy rich suburb of Chicago.

Just this morning I was almost run off the road by some anorexic housewife driving an H2 and trying to juggle her venti Starbuck’s glass and her cell phone. A few days ago I had to pick up some groceries on the way into the office and the guy bagging my stuff was already almost out the door with my goods before I had finished paying. I caught up to him and he informed me everyone got their groceries carried to their cars.

I had two plastic bags of groceries!

I told him it really wasn’t necessary and marveled to myself that some folks would actually allow some young dude to carry their six-pack of SlimFast out to their imported SUV. Could people really be that lazy? Even worse, could people really feel such a sense of entitlement?

Apparently so.

I won’t even go into the nightmare of trying to order a coffee at Starbucks if your income is obviously under three hundred grand a year.

The kicker is that I never see people smile around here. The few times I’ve seen even the facsimile of a smile it usually comes across as a pained rictus stretching across the cheeks and jaw, and for all I know it could just be a poorly healed face-lift. It’s just so…foreign…to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t entertain any playful notions that any of these folks feel in the least bit unfulfilled or unhappy. Actually I’m quite certain that they are, as a general group, very pleased with both themselves and their station in life.

I suppose that when I was younger I would either hate or pity the people that live out here, but that is just the sort or knee-jerk reaction prompted by intolerance disguised as a disdain for a class system. Instead I can view these people as annoying when they cut me off or butt in line in front of me or treat their hired help poorly, but they really behave no differently than the impatient driver downtown or the harried office assistant trying to get five coffees upstairs ASAP before she gets chewed out by her boss.

These are people with goals and ambitions that are foreign to me, but their behavior is merely average albeit a behavior exaggerated by that sense of entitlement I mentioned earlier. I just wish they’d hang up their fucking cell-phones if they’re going to try and pilot a half-ton of metal and a venti Starbucks at the same time.
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Let's hear it for $in!

Rudy and I will be joined by $in tonight at Ten56 as we turn up the rock and/or roll at our Sweet Alice Tuesday residency.

Come and marvel at my unfortunate song selections!
Stare in awe at Rudy's unspeakable love for both Paul Westerberg and Barry White!
Allow a shocked a stunned silence to envelope you as $in tears into his massive air guitar!

Slalom y'all!