09 July 2022

The very rich are different from you and me

 F. Scott Fitzgerald's original quote in The Rich Boy went as follows:
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."
And that was before the invention of prostate artery embolization and botox for the bladder...
Crawling through increasingly insufferable summer traffic to and from their second homes, sometimes as far as 100 miles away, has left many of New York City's wealthiest — especially those on the older side — with increased bladder issues, as there are few places to stop during the multi-hour trip.

To combat "Hamptons bladder," New Yorkers who summer in the exclusive Long Island enclave are seeking a pair of specialized medical procedures: prostate artery embolization, which reduces the size of the prostate in men, and "bladder Botox," which decreases urinary frequency for women. 

"A lot of people have problems with this issue. They come out to the Hamptons and have to stop four or five times on the way, but can't find a restroom," said Dr. David Shusterman, a New York City urologist who's been advertising the procedures with the tagline "Race to the Hamptons, not to the bathroom."
More about the new procedures at Insider.

8 comments:

  1. It's funny, these are the same that vehemently oppose transit and bus lanes that would alleviate their problems.

    Self-inflicted harm by stubborn entitlement. I hope these medical procedures are painful, and very expensive and not covered by health insurance.

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  2. Seems like the really rich would just take a helicopter or plane to their vacation home so that they don’t have to wait in traffic.

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    1. A friend (and neighbour) was a cook for a rich person in Montreal. She (the cook) also had a cottage in the country (Eastern Townships). Several times, on Friday evenings, a helicopter landed in one of the fields and then took off. I found out it was her employer, having asked her to stay late on Friday, was flying her out to her cottage so she could be there with her family for the weekend.

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  3. Listen, everyone can become a billionaire if they just work hard! In fact, if you can earn just $100,000 a day for just over 27 years, you too can be someone with the sad situation of having two homes.

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  4. Or you could just try not drinking anything diuretic for an hour or two before leaving home, and hitting the bathroom just before you head out. This works for movies too! /s
    Sandra

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  5. The very poor are also different from you and me...

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  6. Civilizations and their elaborate hierarchical blueprints. The subject of nine-tenths of all literature?

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  7. They're basically lizards.

    Also, they should stop drinking so much Champagne all the time and then they wouldn't need all those gold plated urinals.

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