If I Had a Million Dollars

So I am now addicted to VH1. Not all of it. I have a Tivo so I can pick and choose, instead of just putting it on. Mostly what I choose is the Fabulous Life of . . . series. I think it's, well, fabulous. You know what's especially hilarious about it? That the VH1 commentators can constantly react with such shock; that they can so very consistently apply their own salaries to the celebrities' lifestyles. I was watching one about celebrity kids, and they were oohing and aahing over some family - the Travoltas, perhaps? - going on an around-the-world vacation over the summer. Imagining these kids going back to school that fall, they were gushing, "Oh, what did you do this summer? I worked at camp, I went to Disney World, I went . . . around the world?!!! How many kids can say that? They're just going to be the coolest kids at school." Well . . . not at the Travolta's kids' school. Or whoever. At the Travolta's kids' school, lots of kids probably take extravagant vacations over the summer. I mean, they probably do go to Disney World, but they probably get to rent the park out, you know?

Or yesterday, I was watching Fantabulous Homes. They were all on top of Jerry Seinfeld for putting a baseball field on his bajillion dollar property in Long Island. "What a waste!" they cried. "The land under that field is probably worth $15 million!" So what? A baseball field sounds like a perfectly good use of space to me. I mean, this isn't public property. He bought it as part of his home. So he's not going to, I don't know, put a homeless shelter there. Not that these people would have cared; they talk about Angelina Jolie's house in Cambodia and they don't even mention her charitable work. But a baseball field would be great at your house! Your friends could come over. Your kids' friends could come over. I mean, he didn't build a stadium. It's just the diamond. I didn't even see bleachers or anything.

Then again, I also thought that Aaron Spelling using two of his 128 rooms in his mansion as gift-wrapping rooms sounded totally reasonable. I mean, if you're Aaron Spelling, you have a lot of gifts to give. And wrapping them actually takes up a lot of space. When I was working as a receptionist last year, I was helping the head secretary wrap the Christmas gifts the company was sending out, and they weren't really big presents - just candies and cookies and nuts - but we needed to completely transform the space between our cubicles, plus use an empty room in the back, plus use part of the warehouse, and the wrapping, etc., was all stored in a closet. Gift-wrapping is space-consuming! And I'm sure Aaron Spelling is not just sending out gifts with drugstore wrapping and $0.99 ribbon, either.

Maybe I was just meant to be ridiculously wealthy, so this all makes perfect sense to me.