Recently my girlfriend and I were invited to dinner at a  friends house. The couple  were just recently married and had just moved into their first home. As we pulled up to the house we gazed at the two story houses with Mercedes and Beamers in their driveways. We were in a pretty swish area, enemy territory.

 knocking on the front door (which i half expected half to be opened by a butler named Belvedere), Paul- the man of the house ushered us in.

It was about that time that it hit me. Like an enormous  tidal wave, destroying all my mediocre achievements in life. A supercollossal slaughtering Tsunami of bitter resent. My face was the darkest green known to man, instantly overwhelmed by feelings of jealousy and green eyed envy. 

 A house that was big enough to fit the whole cast of the biggest loser, A spa, pool table, outdoor swimming pool, plasma screen t.v and fully stocked bar. It was all too much. I spent most of the dinner trying to conceal the fact that i was so jealous that i could barely swallow my caviar.



Me? Envious?.......Noooooo


 Contemplating the facts of being 'financially challenged' and comparing my worthless existence with the dream life these people had aquired.
 
Wallowing in self pity and thinking about paying 25 dollars an hour to play pool down at the local hall.
Having to line up with all the other poor impoverished people at the public swimming pool just to take a dip in a crowded, toddler piss diluted pool.
 Forking out 7 bucks at a jampacked pub just for a cold beer. Flicking through the five T.V channels, when i should  be sitting on my leather couch watching cable. All the things that this couple were already doing ....in the comfort of their own home.

All this made me resentful of what they had attained. Envy is one powerful son of a bitch. To make this worse, you try to focus those feelings on someone apart from yourself. You want to HATE the person who has so much more than you. But you cant. You can't because they are so damned nice and worked too bloody hard for what they have. So ultimately you internalise it all and try to work out why you have less than everyone else.

 After dinner and goodbye, it was time to leave Lushville and head back to Humbletown. Jumping into my two thousand dollar Daewoo with a floating exhaust, we called it a night. Emotions are sometimes like achohol. Not recommended when driving. Seething with jealousy, trying to resist the urge to ramraid every ATM on  the way home and secretly longing for a distant wealthy relative with a terminal disease. I was on  a collison course with depression.


But as promptly as it came, it left again. That gigantic tidal wave of envy and jealousy was quickly dried up by the look on my beautiful girlfriends  face.

  Women have a way of putting thngs into perspective.  Sure, we may not have  the million dollar mansion or a two door Porche Carrera with a water cooled, horizontally opposed 6 cylinder 3834cc engine and top speed of 300 km, but we had eachother.

"You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy"

                                                                                                                  Eric Hoffer




Thanks to Sarah and all the family and friends who make me one of the richest guys around.
(I still want a Porsche)

insert gushy warm feeling and gag/vomiting sound here...

Wow, it's a wonderful life. I feel better already.