Читать книгу White Asparagus - D. R. Belz - Страница 21

Now that the new millennium is well underway, let’s face it: humanity hasn’t accomplished all that much, “Net, net, net,” as the lawyers say. No cure for cancer; no solution for world hunger; no humans permanently living on other planets. We haven’t even been able to keep water out of the basement reliably.

But some things have changed. Take etiquette, for example.

What we do for a living has become so much a part of modern life that the traditional “How do you do?” has been replaced by “What do you do?” followed close on by “What kind of hollow-point ammo does your handgun take?”

Cell phones and call waiting have made interrupting someone in mid-sentence a required social skill for the new century. Learn to practice this artfully by yelling “Whoop, there it is!” when, at the symphony, your phone starts playing Beethoven’s Fifth in the middle of Brahms’s Third. And when someone is explaining the details of her marital breakup, mutter quickly: “Uh-huh, uh-huh. uh-huh, uh-huh.” When a friend tries to convince you that cell, web and net are all words for things that imprison us, respond with a slow, sarcastic clapping.

Tell everyone who will listen that you are very “green,” but remember to raise your children without limits to their wants. If they don’t wish to, your children should not be made to go to school, since this might traumatize them and make them think you don’t love them enough or want to be their friend. Teach them to be independent and self-reliant, which experience shows consists largely of being rude and obtuse to others.

Teach them that no man is an island, but if you can manage to be a peninsula, you’re three-quarters of the way there. Encourage them to harshly criticize people who believe everything they need to know they learned in kindergarten. In the spirit of nurturing their First Amendment rights, teach them a variety of curses while you tailgate people down the highway trying to be first at the next red light.

Marry not wisely or well, but often, which experts agree will become the quickest route to self-actualization, without having to claim it on tax forms. Remember that the reason married people live longer than single people is that misery loves company.

Live so that your grandchildren will recount the story of your life and spouses, ending it: “And so they lived happily ever after, for awhile.”

Build an outrageously large, ostentatious house that will show people how good you are at wheeling and dealing, looking out for number one, being your own best friend, going for it all, and picking out wallpaper with ducks all over it. This will also show people that you know what “ostentatious” means, making them feel shallow and small.

Have a suitable guesthouse built out back for them: just under five feet tall at the eaves and about three and a half feet wide. Supply no guest parking, and don’t let them wash their car at your house, either. Or maybe let them, but don’t supply a hose or nozzle.

Dress so that people can see that all of your taste is in your mouth. Accomplishing this will require the purchase of clothing emblazoned with animal fetishes as trademarks, as well as the names of various foreign designers. It should all seem rather weird under the surface, and, speaking of under the surface, buy all of your underwear from stores that run large expensive advertisements of people posed nearly naked with empty champagne glasses trying to appear as if they are expecting dinner guests.

Strive to make your life a study in extravagance. Because simplicity is the soul of elegance, simply flaunt your lifestyle to everyone you come in contact with. To soothe your guilt at living so histrionically, join a volunteer peace and justice league, but don’t invite them over for cocktails.

Your hobbies should include artificial rock-climbing, closed-pen spear fishing, alpine paintball-skiing, motocross racing (desert only), and reading thick annual reports at the beach.

Your analyst’s patient files should read like the social register.

Keep yourself lean and hungry by regular exercise at an exorbitantly priced health club with overtly sadistic personal trainers. Your investment portfolio should read like an antitrust case. Dabble in futures, doodle in margins, shoot the moon on suspect security-backed investment instruments, and generally make a planetary nuisance of yourself by investing in corporations involved in rapacious enterprises in the Third World.

Finally, take consolation in that, while your friends won’t really like you, only diamonds are forever.