Sitting at the computer desk in the living room of her diminutive one bedroom SoHo condominium in lower Manhattan, Cheyenne started reviewing all of the journal entries she’d been keeping for nearly two years. She used a tagging system of red post-its for serious conspicuous consumption offenders whose multiple infractions exceeded five hundred thousand dollars. Her journal included a rapper who bought Rolex watches for three-year-old twins; a Hollywood movie producer who owned ten homes in seven states for his family of three; a socialite who purchased 365 outfits for every day of the year for a teenage child; a 35-year-old man who purchased a Bentley in all of his favorite colors; a 26-year old NBA player who bought his fiancé a 20-carat diamond ring; a lottery winner who spent all of his $23 million jackpot in one year, and so on. However, she also found herself flagging a certain Hollywood bad boy CCO who not only bought breast implants as a birthday gift for his 18-year-old daughter, but also gave her a birthday party that cost over two hundred thousand dollars. Then when she heard he was “making it rain” with one hundred dollar bills at a strip club Cheyenne vowed that she would smack him with the back of her hand if she ever found herself in the same room with him.

Cheyenne was convinced that the wealthy CCOs had no idea on what to do with their money so she planned to offer her assistance. She wanted them to see why shoving their wealth in people’s faces when the poor were starving was mean. She fantasized about the CCOs coming together to help get the country out of debt and feeling good about themselves because they helped the country remain a super power. Cheyenne took the CCOs spending personal. David asked her to go and get help because she was becoming fanatical. She didn’t think he was serious, but Cheyenne soon started seeing literature about psychotherapists around the apartment. When he threatened to leave her if she didn’t seek help, Cheyenne made an appointment last month with Dr. Tom Siegel, a psychologist she found in one of the brochures David left on the coffee table.

A few days before her appointment she’d experienced a meltdown after seeing a CCO hotel heiress and a billionaire on TV talking about their success. She sent an e-mail to the heiress, berating her for having the audacity to say she worked hard for her wealth. Cheyenne conducted a long-winded verbal assassination on the heiress that started with telling her that she was fed with a silver spoon dipped in gold and diamonds. The conversation ended with Cheyenne saying that not only did the heiress not work for a cent of the wealth given to her, but neither did her parents. Cheyenne then included a P.S. telling the heiress that she will say a special prayer that she continues to snort her wealth away so she can join the rest of mankind in the bottom ten percent. Then, a billionaire CCO successfully made Cheyenne’s vomit come all the way up. The rainbow load of lava came up so fast from her throat that she didn’t even have time to run to the bathroom. She leaped off the sofa, took three steps to the floor plant, and let the bacteria-laden concoction free flow onto the large green leaves. The billionaire said he didn’t believe in giving money away, not even for charity. He said he came from a family who believed that the goal was to make as much money as possible and to put it away. It was simply to be gathered for a rainy day. Nearly three billion dollars. Gathered and stored. For a rainy day. Unwilling to actually say the billionaire’s name out loud, Cheyenne renamed him Mr. Piggy because he looked like a gargantuan two-legged pink pig complete with a suit and tie. His nose made an actual pig’s nose look like a plastic surgeon’s greatest accomplishment.

*This is an excerpt of a satirical piece I wrote.

#greed #wealthy #rich