I was having a conversation with this classmate of mine. The thing is, the both of us are 'perceived' to be the richest among the lot in the class, an honour we would be quick to refute and are very much undeserving of, thank you very much.
Ironically, this classmate kept bugging me with questions laden with hidden meaning. For an instant, I felt like I was being transported back to my secondary school's science laboratory and had an experiment conducted on me, a litmus test to 'determine' how rich I am. (May I also add how pitiful the unwilling victim, yours truly, is.) Dissecting my 'insides' and 'poking' through loopholes just so I could come out and say, "Ok, I confess. I'm rich. In fact, my father is a billionaire. (So not true at all.)"
Excerpts from our conversation:
him: You know, that day, my parents wanted to give me and my brother a supplementary card each. But, of course, I couldn't except it!
smartyypants69: Why not?
him: Are you crazy? I will spend all my parent's money away! Even though sometimes I can cover up with excuses like, you know, I'm buying clothes for the new year and my parents will most likely close an eye...but I will waste my parents money lah! And, besides, if I get a supplementary card, I will have to pay all the bills myself!
The conversation carries on until he started 'accusing' me of being rich, and we started a verbal war tirade of sorts, each trying to 'prove' that they were the poorer one.
smartyypants69: I'm very poor lah, please!
him: Yeah, right. Dun bluff!
smartyypants69: Ok, how much do you have in your wallet right now?
him: Er...10 bucks.
smartyypants69: Yeah, right.
him: Serious...(starts taking out his wallet)
smartyypants69: (brushes his comment off lightly) Oh, wait...you must have some sort of credit card with you or something right? (like, duh, all rich people do.)
him: No, I don't, really. I'm like really broke right now.
smartyypants69: Ok, so how much allowance do you get from your parents a week?
him: Er...like around...50 bucks.How about you?
smarttypants69: See?! (gives him a 'duh' look) I get less allowance than you! Minus bus fares to top up my ex-link card, I get 40 dollars a week.
him: So, what about if you don't minus it off?
smartyypants69: $60.
him: Yeah, right. You're such a liar. Ok, show me your watch?
smartyypants69: (hides tattered and torn watch away from him) No!
him: (persistent in an irritating mosquito-kinda-way) No, let me see..
smartyypants69: (hides watch behind computer in a desperate attempt to conceal the embarrassment of being seen in public with a watch whose strap had ripped all the way, and considers for a brief moment, to sit on it.)
him: Is it a watch from Ralph Lauren or ... (starts rambling off names of designer watches) (he starts thinking that I have a watch that costs $10,000 ensconed snugly on my wrist)
smartyypants69: No! It's a watch that I bought for four dollars! FOUR SINGAPORE DOLLARS! (sticks out four fingers at his face as though he is illiterate or something)
***
You're such a liar.
So, basically the highlight of the conversation, with him labelling me "a liar" just because I say I'm poor, is that he doesn't believe what I say just like how I don't trust him when he says he's broke. (He probably has a secret bank account in Switzerland or something that he withdraws cash urgently from.) As you can see for youself, the conversation consists mostly of "Yeah, right" since the both of us have sneaking suspicions about the validity of the other party's claims.
A friend of mine once openly mulled over why the rich people in our class couldn't come out of our closet in the same open fashion as the gay celebrities (think N*Sync's Lance Bass and Westlife's Mark Feehily) in Hollywood do.
Well, the reason is simple. We don't want to be seen as different. We want to be cliquey, and certainly do not need people to put us in a different category or start treating us in a different way. Neither do we need to be placed on an invisible pedestral just because "oh, he's so flithy rich".
At the end of the day, it's a never-ending debate.
Although I shall insist that he's the richer one.
***
Btw, just in case curiousity is killing you right now...I bought the watch at Bangkok for 100 baht, equivalent to 4 Sing dollars. It has since torn apart but I still proudly dorn it on my slender wrist because I feel it accentuates my perfection for beauty (vomits) and suits me very well (er....for a start...it is very fat..I can think of one person who would agree with me, and her name starts with A. Coincidentally, she's the sexiest girl in my school also, and I feel very priviliged that she notices me enough to call me 'fat'.)
No comments:
Post a Comment