I met this rich guy a few weeks ago at a local sushi bar who had all sorts of questions about what I do. I presume he was scanning me for gold-digger potential, trying to determine if I had “dollar signs in my eyes,” which is how he described several of the women he had recently dated.
I’m sitting there thinking, “Buddy, the only thing I have in my eyes right now is that last piece of seared ahi – are you going to eat it, or should I?”
I’m not really sure what he was getting at since I certainly don’t have silicone in my chest, extensions in my hair, the number two in my age or two digits in my weight like most of the women he probably dates.
“How much do you get paid for, say, an article you write in The New York Times?” he wanted to know.
“Not enough to pay for what you’ve probably spent on drinks since arriving in Aspen,” I replied.
Then we got to talking about the Bikram Yoga teacher training I’m doing in April and my illustrious future as a “hot yoga” instructor (both figuratively and literally, of course).
“Does it pay well?” he asked.
“I’ll make less in a month than you spent on your hotel room for the night, but it’s more of an investment in the lifestyle. You know, wellness and all that.”
He just sat there and shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he said, fishing through a stack of $100 bills in his wallet.
I think I passed the Gold Digger Test with flying colors. It’s not that I don’t want money – and we all know I could certainly use a little more of it. It’s just that I don’t really care about it. What Rich Guy doesn’t know/understand is I live on mountain town currency. It’s a system based on the trade of goods and services and relies heavily on personal connections – friends in various businesses who might hook you up with a free ski tune or two, or maybe forget to enter those drinks into your dinner bill.
I could try to explain to Mr. Deep Pockets that I don’t need money to be able to afford my quality of life, but I get the sense that like most businessmen, he relies on numbers to quantify value.
I could tell him about how I got a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate truffles for co-hosting The Local’s Show with my buddy Erik Skarvan. It was a tough gig, let me tell you, spending an entire half-hour in front of the camera shooting the breeze about life in Aspen. Erik’s always really tough to be around, too, especially if you’re trying to keep a straight face and not let the fact that he is one of the happiest, giggliest guys on the planet get to you.
I could explain how the last hut trip I went on had better food, entertainment and ambiance than any luxury vacation I’ve been on in my life, even though we spent less than $60 a person. Not to mention the powder skiing and peace and quiet a few nights spent in the backcountry will get you.
I might even tell him about the full-moon parties we have on the West Ridge of Buttermilk, how a whole crew of us skins up the mountain at dusk to enjoy spirits and nibbles around a campfire before skiing and snowboarding down under the liquid night sky, the trail itself like a mirror image of the moon.
I was thinking about all this recently when I was lounging around the Sky Hotel pool, with my friends drinking beer out of plastic cups, in a bikini in the middle of winter. We were all talking about how great our life is and how content we felt, even as we threw down five credit cards to pay for our $100 bill.
That’s when my friend Nate said: “I saw this bumper sticker the other day that just sums it up. It said, ‘My life is better than your vacation.”‘
So when I deposited one of my measly paychecks, only to see more than half of it get chomped up by overdraft fees, I laughed and shook my fist at the negative marks and big ugly zeroes.
“I don’t need you!” I cried. “My life is just fine without you in it!”
Talk about not having dollar signs in my eyes. My life is rich with experience.
Freelance columnist Alison Berkley can be reached at alison@berkleymedia.com.
