When is it enough?

Last weekend I had to attend a fundraising dinner. I love to attend parties hosted by my friends where I can just be me, but not the formal dinners with unknown dinner companions and polite conversations where everything is so “fake”. But this was an event I couldn’t weasel out, so I went.

First sign of trouble was the entre’e. While everyone was served with Canapes, being vegetarian I was gifted with a spear of asparagus and two tiny carrots, decorated with some glaze and alfalfa sprout. Ideally I should know better and eat something before attending parties like this, but being  vain, I didn’t want my already flabby belly to be even more flabby and show through the gown. ( Yes, I know I am vain!). I was famished and I needed to eat something before I drank all the bubbly. I looked at the asparagus. It looked tender! , so instead of using the blasted knife and cutting the stupid thing in to bite size pieces, I thought, I will spear it with my fork and take little nibbles! ( Don’t ask why, I am not usually this dumb) I tried to take a gentle well mannered  nibble..and realized the asparagus indeed look thin and tender, but in actual fact is hard and old. And while struggling to take a bloody bite, the stupid thing slid off the fork and I watched in total horror as the spear of asparagus made a beeline for my lap.. I don’t know why, but time always stand still when I do embarrassing things. I pretended that there was no asparagus on my plate and the thing on my lap isn’t really there.

As I talked to my dinner companions at my table, I  very covertly tossed the bloody asparagus on to the floor.  I think this particular asparagus spear was very attracted to me, for it landed on my own feet.

There was dance after the dinner and imagine sauce streaked feet under fluoro lights. I always carry baby wipes. Trust me, with three kids who are almost in their teens, baby wipes still comes in handy for all those accidental spills.. But not that day.  that day I carried a matching clutch ( to my gown) that had just about enough space to hold a credit card. ( Why do people design such clutch is the question here, not why I bought such useless accessories!)

I had to twist the bottom part of my body in very unnatural styles, while keeping my upper half of the body still and while I talked and chatted and laughed, my hands were busy wiping the sauce off my feet using the edge of the napkin.

Main course was two pieces of 1 inch size wrap filled with crap in a bed of some unknown puree. While my carnivorous companions had a choice of fresh atlantic salmon on a bed of rice or fillet Mignon on a bed of mashed potatoes.. I drooled looking at the rice/mashed potatoes in their plates while staring at the crap in my plate. At least they could have served the wrap on a bed of mashed potatoes, No?

There was free flow of champagne..and my belly was empty. I still needed to get back home and not end up incoherent in someone else’s house/room/car etc !

The hardest thing to do is to say no to bubbly.. But then again, if I wasn’t so vain and ate something before I went to the party, I would have been able to drink as much bubbly as I wanted ! My fault entirely!

Ah, the tile of the post.. that is the second part of the story

The lady who sat next to me is the wife of the CEO of one of the biggest company in Australia. They have a mansion in Gold Coast with its own marina, holiday villas across the globe,expensive cars and (I think) he even own a private jet ! As we made small talk, she asked where I am working and I told her and then for courtesy’s sake asked her about her work. She said she cleans and serve tea at a salon. I thought I didn’t hear her right, then I thought perhaps she was joking. She might have noticed the puzzled look on my face and replied. “It is my friend’s salon and she pays me 20$/hr because she knows I am reliable. 20$ is a lot of money for such an easy job, Don’t you agree?”

One part of me is impressed that even though she is the wife of a multimillionaire, she still doesn’t think of herself so high and mighty and is willing to do menial jobs. The other part of me wants to know when will people say they have enough?.When so many mother’s who are desperately trying to find a job to put food on their table, here is woman who has everything, still working  because 20$/hour is a lot of money.

 

6 thoughts on “When is it enough?

  1. Had a good laugh especially reading about the “dance ”

    And I think it is good that the lady in question chose to work rather than “being a lady of leisure ” .Sometimes money is not the sole motivation , Sitting at home doing nothing can drive people insane !

    • Ceena: I know staff who have lost their job after the new govt came in to power. Some of them are weeks away from being homeless. There is always volunteer jobs available for rich bored wives, but digging in to the bowls of the needy is not right!

      • I do not agree with the “you are rich so the only thing you should do is volunteer” philosophy. You never know if the rich lady is donating her income to charity. And no, she is not “digging” into the bowls of the needy. She applied, like any other person looking for a job, she probably interviewed just like any other person looking for a job and she is most likely working just as hard as any other person would for that job! While it is sad that people are losing their jobs, it is not right to chastise someone who got their jobs through legal means no matter how much they are financially well off.

        It reminds me of the idea from Atlas Shrugged where everyone was paid according to their need and not for their contribution. That system did not fare very well!

        • Clueless: The greatest lesson I learned is from the man who loved to go walking in the woods very early in the morning and collect the mushrooms for me. He never picked all the mushrooms, even if it meant that we won’t really have enough, because he felt just as we have a right to eat those wild mushrooms, so do the animals that live in the woods.
          It isn’t so much about legally getting a job, working hard, or for that matter the rich wives shouldn’t work. It is about leaving those bits of mushrooms for the others, instead of always thinking about I, me and myself!
          “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
          ? Mahatma Gandhi

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