by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It’s very interesting how in America we’re so busy talking about racism that we are pretty oblivious to another prejudice: class. I can usually fake a similar class as the smug asshole Twitter liberals who want to sell me MeUndies on their podcast. That is, until, of course, my natural bonkers kookiness comes out and they dismiss me.
Also, I’m just too poor — at the moment — for smug Blue Check liberals to accept me in any real way, no matter how much they probably would like me if they got to know me.
And that, my friend, is why class sucks.
I could win the $1.1 billion Mega Millions jackpot and it wouldn’t change how old I am and it wouldn’t change my class background. I have a relative who is far more successful than I am who acts like he’s some salt of the earth red neck when, in fact, if we both went to a cocktail party with snooty wealthy people they would definitely gravitate towards him in the end.
I would, however, probably get drunk in such a situation and have very loud, very interesting conversations with the best looking woman at the party. That’s just sort of my thing.
Anyway, the older I get the more I understand the invisible power of class. When I was an expat in South Korea, there was a regular communist utopia going on because everyone was getting paid about the same amount and everyone was doing pretty much the same thing for a living. The only real differences were one of origin, which is why you often get asked, “Where you from?” when you saddle up to a bar and find yourself talking to someone new.
As I approach my 50th birthday, I’m feeling a lot of existential angst because no matter what happens to me there are some things I just can’t change because of my dissipated, squandered youth.
