BOWLED OVER

MS. CRANKY HEARD ABOUT BEYONCE AND JZ SPENDING $400,000 A MONTH RENTAL ON A HOUSE IN THE HAMPTONS AND WONDERS ---

It may not be true, you can’t always ‘trust the media’ but it was reported on the news late last week that Beyoncé and JZ and Baby Blue (though she doesn’t sign the checks yet), rented a place in the Hamptons for $400,000 a month, a month, not a year, not buying.

Ms. Cranky didn’t get really upset over the discrepancy in her money and theirs but she did get incredulous.  Not only about where does one get that kind of money but --- isn’t that a lot for a house for one lousy month?  

Cranky well knows that there are very rich people in the culture, some in her neighborhood (!) and there are sports figures and rock stars along with the ordinary Wall St. types but this $400,000 summer rental is bowling her over, it must be bowling the poor little baby over, or maybe they have a bowling alley too.  Ms. Cranky feels that if you rent an expensive home in the Hamptons, you really need a bowling alley.  I mean George’s on Route 5 just won’t do.  I mean, you’ve gone all the way out to Long Island, you’re lost in the beauty of the dunes and the long lovely-sounding grasses, you’re at a wonderful private beach, there’s a pool, so, of course, you’d be lost without bowling!

Maybe Cranky got her facts wrong while being bowled over --- ha, ha, ha.  In fact, Cranky is getting so confused she might need a bowl of Wheaties --- ha, ha, ha.

So, as Cranky does when she can’t deal with things, she puts them aside and reads a book or does a puzzle that makes her so mad she can’t think of anything else. But, the next day, it came back to her and she began thinking of the amount once again, thinking of what she had earned for most of her life and trying to figure out how many years it would take to save up $400,000 if she had to spend nothing for food, rent, bus fare, etc. --- 16, sixteen years, actually, maybe more like 20, when she thinks of some of those years.  It was easy; she did the math in her head on the subway.  Wow.

She wonders if that fee includes paper towels? Salt and pepper, good salt and pepper, not those little paper things Ms. Cranky steals from fast food places.  Is there mustard for the hot dogs?  Ya’ gotta have hotdogs --- it’s summer.  A wine cellar --- hmm, now things are starting to look up, fully stocked, of course?

Ms. Cranky will refrain from making any comparisons to the lives of this family (they work for their money) and her life and some of her friends’ lives.

$400,000!   Wow, that could buy Cranky a nice little apartment, maybe in an elevator building and an apartment newly crisply painted.  And, then, she’d be able to live the rest of her life, using coupons still and cooking daily, but she could take her nephews on trips and, maybe, be able to afford a little, well mid-sized, doggie.

She would still donate which she does now but she’d have more to donate.  Currently Ms. Cranky is valiantly trying to refrain from giving money to every subway station musician or group but it’s hard, real hard, especially when the subway musicians carry heavy things down the stairs to set up --- how can Cranky not tip them with their drums and tubas and, sometimes, there’s this guy with a piano???  I mean, come onnnnnn!

(Cranky once told a guy on the “F” train that she always tipped musicians who were ‘on key,’ but the person, a sort of jaundiced-in-attitude type but she liked him anyway, said that he ‘always tipped the ones singing off key --- hoping they’d stop!!!’  There are some things Ms. Cranky just can’t forget.  And, why would she want to???)

It’ll be hard for her to get over thinking of $400,000 rent for a house at the shore for one month but, then, of course, if there’s a bowling alley --- that would explain everything.

Ms. Cranky, Monday, August 13, 2012, a lighter air day

Thanks for stopping by, as always.  Have a great end to your summer, however and wherever you get to spend it.

(An explanation --- Ms. Cranky was one of the worst bowlers ever.  It was embarrassing how bad she was, especially coupled with how hard she tried.  But, the one thing about bowling she remembers she liked was the ambience of an old crumby bowling alley on some highway on the outskirts of town with its neon signs, horrible run-down shoes and permeating smell of stale beer.  Who would give up that?)