When I was a kid, there were only two things I wanted to be when I grew up: rich and famous.
I didn't care how. Maybe I'd be an amazing actor. Maybe I'd write a best-seller. Maybe I'd write a song the whole world would sing along to. Honestly, it didn't matter. I just wanted money and fame and all the delicious trappings that come with it.
Often, I'd daydream about my future celebrity lifestyle -- I squarely blame Richie Rich comic books. Mostly I'd just think about the basic stuff, like how many servants I'd have, where my mansions would be located, and how much gold they'd be filled with. My friends and I would even sketch out floor plans of our future mansions in our Trapper Keepers, and then spend our lunch hours slurping down chocolate milk while arguing over who had the best designs.
I never really knew what I wanted on the main floors of my dream mansions. I didn't have any extremely wealthy friends, so I didn't have much to go on. I just remember always designating one room as the "conservatory," despite not knowing what a conservatory was. I just knew it from the board game "Clue," and it sounded fancy. I just figured I needed one in case Colonel Mustard ever came round for a visit and fancied committing some atrocities with a candlestick.
The focus of our dream mansion floor plans, though, was always below ground. My mansions were kinda boring up top, but lurking underneath? Well, they all pretty much resembled the underground lairs of your standard Bond villains. You know, delightful accoutrements like pits lined with spikes. Pools full of sharks and piranha. Multiple bowling alleys. The giant warehouse room where Indy stashed the Ark of the Covenant. One of them even had an escape tunnel that bore through the core of the Earth and came out in China. As underground lairs go, mine were pretty sweet.
I'm not sure why pre-teen me thought celebrity status always required an underground lair, but it seemed a crucial element in any mansion I'd sketch out. I'm not sure if my celebrity plans included world domination by brute force (which might explain the missile silos my mansions were usually equipped with.) Maybe I was just planning to be such a reclusive kajillionaire that I needed a house capable of fending off a full-scale invasion. Maybe I just thought it would be a great way to impress the ladies (because, as we all know, if there's one thing chicks dig, it's a sub-sub-sub-basement video arcade surrounded by snake pits.)
But the older and wiser I get, the happier I become that I never achieved my desired levels of fame. I'm pretty sure being a celebrity might be miserable.
This morning, I watched highlights from Monday's Met Gala -- and if you're unfamiliar, the highlights consist of little more than watching famous people standing around being famous. The Met Gala is New York's premiere annual fashion event. It's literally just a dinner party -- except that it's $75,000 per plate and you have to show up looking like Christian Dior vomited on a peacock.
Beyond that, no one actually knows what the Met Gala is, unless you're one of the katrillionaires lucky enough to be invited by Vogue editor Anna Wintour to fork over $75K of your own money to get through the doors. We lower life forms aren't allowed inside. We simply get to watch the celebrities walk in and out, a task which appears to require a team of stylists, jewelry worth more than the GNP of some struggling nations, and a massive security detail to ensure none of that jewelry walks off in a different direction.
It sounds positively awful and just so out of step with our tumultous world. I get no joy out of dressing spiffy. To me, putting on a suit is every bit as awkward and unnatural as a Halloween costume. If I'm paying $75,000 for a meal, you'd better believe I'd show up in jeans and a comfy t-shirt and not be in constant fear that a cufflink which costs more than I make in a year might fall into my soup. The food there might be amazing, but I reckon I'd be every bit as content with a $15 burger from Floyd's.
Meanwhile, I'd be so stressed about coming up with non-idiotic celebrity small talk that I'd be in a constant state of near-stroke. No pressure there, right? You're only trying to make idle chit-chat with the likes of Rihanna and Beyonce. If you forced me to attend this event, reporters wouldn't be asking me, "Who are you wearing?" I'd be flop-sweating so hard that their only questions would be, "Whose pool did you just fall into? Do you need medical attention?"
If you look at photos from the Met Gala, absolutely no one looks happy. Every attendee poses looking stoic and serious. Maybe that just goes hand-in-hand with trying to look glamorous, but I'm not convinced. I'm pretty sure it's just a relatively miserable time and a duty to attend in order to keep being the "it" girl or "it" boy. Maybe I'm wrong and it's all tremendous fun, but something tells me I'll never know.
I don't think I'm destined for fame or fortune or personal invites from Anna Wintour. My options for achieving celeb status are running out. I have a hard enough time acting like myself, let alone someone else. I'm not going to write a best-seller because I'd rather keep writing stupid stories about my cats here every week. I'm too old to become a rock star, and besides, I'm pretty sure playing records is more fun than making them. I fear I'm just going to have to be content with my relative anonymity, average human income, and mere one-level basement embarassingly free of shark pits. Sigh.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in my conservatory. (And no, I still have no idea what a conservatory is.)
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