I pretended be rich today.  Well not the entire day, and it was really quite by accident.  The irony of the situation was that I was helping a friend file for unemployment insurance downtown at Service Canada.  It was said friend who had chosen the lunch spot, even after seeing mains beginning in the mid forties. 

This was quite possibly one of my more favourite experiences-and quite possibly a springboard into a mid-day wine-drinking habit.

We didn’t have a server, we had a team of eager Italian men employed solely to ensure we were not a minute without gourmet breads and sparkling water.  The wine-aerated at each individual pour through a fancy decanter attached to the bottle. 

Walking into the restaurant I was a little intimidated.  I felt I had perhaps wandered into someone’s private garden party. We walked through the interior of the restaurant which folded seamlessly into the terrace which surrounded, wait for it- a lily-pad pond, leave it for my friend to loudly notice the dead mouse floating peacefully atop his quiet lily leaf grave. The chairs were covered in off-white linen, as were the majority of the service staff. 

We both had the caprese salad and a glass of white wine.  I don't remember what we talked about, but I do remember my thoughts; my wonderings of how we were perceived: my 44 year old friend in her bedazzled kitty-cat shirt and me in whatever I was able to quickly throw together in a morning I would have rather-ed remained sleeping through.

I thought I was beyond that: caring what other people thought, most especially those with a more privileged social standing.  If anything, my nose looks down at them, those whose lives missed the character molding which hardship, distress, and no safety-net bring.  Its a world which equates itself to fiction to me.  A world which separates humanity into 2 categories, those who serve and those to be served.  Perhaps I'm just bitter at recent events, perhaps it's being the server to those who demand to be served.  My life has never actually seen this separation, that is until I moved to Montreal.  It's everywhere.  I was accused of being a society girl once.  I didn't know what that meant. I still don't.  People are people.  I appreciate that about my upbringing: my rich poverty.  The bumper sticker on the back of our old camper/playhouse read "at least it's paid for", funny, I understood all the underlining meanings of that sticker even at four.  I think I can honestly admit to myself and those near enough to hear/care, I don't care about money. I never did, never have, and hopefully never will.  Its a tool, that's all it's been to me. There will always be someone with more, and someone with less.  Its what you do with it which reveals the type of person you are. 

*side note: My nose really isn't capable of looking down at anybody, and I know everyone experiences hardship and distress, no matter which tax bracket they sit (I may have actually finished writing this post-inebriation, see below drunk-text-post *sheepish blushing*).  However, my job IS situated in an area where I HAVE dealt with clientele, many actually, who go to great lengths with their finger snaps and their inappropriately-timed yelling outs of "Miss, excuse me, miss..." while I'm clearly busy with someone else, to let me know they are of a class to be served, while myself, the class to serve.  It gets old after a while and my annoyance with it may have slipped into the finishing of this post when I was missing the filter of sobriety.