The Rich Are Different

Tragic Sandwich

I was reading this Expatria, Baby post about the flooding in Jakarta.

We used to live in a crappy apartment. How crappy?

  • For four and a half of the five years we lived there, we had almost no cold water in the kitchen sick. Hot water, yes, but only a trickle of cold.
  • When we called to say that we were finding termites, we were told, “Oh, the owner says that’s not a big problem.”
  • They lost our keys, didn’t tell us for months, and fought us over the cost of rekeying the apartment (Mr. Sandwich did it himself for less than half the cost of a locksmith)–even after telling us that they would pay for it.
  • The plumbing was so poorly put together that on more than one occasion, the toilet backed up. Through the tub drain.
  • Speaking of the plumbing, the building desperately needed to be repiped, but they would only do it one length of pipe at a time. And this is how they patched the stucco:

view

So it was a crappy apartment. But even as we complained about it, we could not get over the fact that for most of the world, it was a palace. Seriously, two people in a two-bedroom apartment? That only had holes in the walls for part of the time? And actually had a toilet and a tub and a sink? I am not being even slightly snarky when I say that we were always very aware that this is a lavish existence for most of the world.

We are incredibly grateful to live in our small house. Now there are three of us, and it has three bedrooms. And the walls and the plumbing are now under our control instead of the landlord’s. It really is amazing to us.

We know that while our lifestyle is modest for many in this country (and unbearable for the Kardashians and their ilk), it is beyond imagining for a great many more.

We’re all rich. We just don’t know it because we’re looking in the wrong direction. Maybe “aspirational” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Photo by Mr. Sandwich.

7 thoughts on “The Rich Are Different”

  1. I agree 100%. There was a time when I made my own breakfast granola to save money on groceries. Now, my husband and I are pretty rich even by US standards (although not even remotely by Kardashian standards). And we know it. We’ve traveled in Asia, so we are also very, very aware of how much less most people in the world live on. Anytime I start feeling bad about what we can’t have (adding on to our house, for instance) I give myself a reality check. We have it great.

    1. I’ve traveled a lot, and while I haven’t spent any time in a Brazilian favela, I have seen enough to know how lavish our ordinary lives are. And I can’t help but compare my circumstances with the homeless people I see on my walk from the bus to my office. No matter how hard it feels some times, we really are fortunate.

  2. Thanks for the mention! And yes, I’ve lived in my fair share of crappy places too, even if by good luck and ( and okay, some hard work) we’re now super lucky to live in a great little apartment, I know that it’s mostly lucky that brought us here. The luck of being born in the west, to families that could support educational endeavours, and meet our basic needs so that we could concentrait, learn, grow. But it was luck, really, that allows us to lead the life we do. Not superior genes, more gracious manners, or general inborn awesomeness.

    Part of the reason that I take such great offence at being called rich (even though I know that I am), is that so many of the really rich people who I see around here (and I see a lot because my husband works in a luxury hotel), they think that the world owes them this life, and the poor deserve to suffer. You should see the way they prance around in designer whatever, dressing their kids in outfits that cost *literally* more than one monthly salary for their nannies, and then grumbling about having to buy soap for their staff that costs 20 cents. Oy. That really makes me want to burn down humanity.

    I dunno. For some reason I’ve always been aware of the injustices that are inherent in this world, but not till I got a bit older and had a kid that it really smacked me right in the heart the great unfairness of a family loosing their toddler because he fell out of bed and drowned, while rich assholes complain about their inability to organize a helicopter to get to an important meeting made inaccessible by flooding.
    Anyway. Ranty comment aside, we’re lucky, aren’t we. So glad to know that you know, too.

    1. I know what you mean–and I thought your post was really good. And of course it isn’t necessary to go around the world or even leave town to find extreme poverty here. I managed a United Way campaign and at the end of the year we were taken on a tour of several programs that benefited from their support. But the thing that really struck home for me was the point at which we drove down L.A.’s Skid Row. I think everyone should have to do that. Too many people espouse pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and never consider that an awful lot of people don’t have the boots with which to do that–literally and metaphorically.

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