Bateman: Appreciating the finer things in life

Look around your little apartment or dormitory room. What do you see? Some $5 pizza boxes stacked up to serve as a nightstand? Look around your little apartment or dormitory room. What do you see? Some $5 pizza boxes stacked up to serve as a nightstand? A PlayStation 3 and a copy of the latest game in the “Call of Duty” series? A poster for a hot college comedy like “American Pie 2” or “Billy Madison?” A few tubs of whey protein for the “hardgaining” phase of your bodybuilding program? After surveying such luxurious surroundings, it might seem like life couldn’t get any better.

Well, we’re here to tell you that, even if it doesn’t, you’re eventually going to want more. Despite the fact that you’re living in the sort of splendor that would give both Emperor Nero and Bachelor Brad pause, it won’t be good enough. No, friends, part of proceeding through college is learning about the finer things and thereafter devoting all of your time and energy to their acquisition.

It typically starts with food. The $5 pizzas that have sustained your spirits and thickened your waist will one day start tasting like so much cardboard. “Why don’t they sprinkle bits of organic Roquefort cheese made from the milk of grain-fed ewes on this?” you’ll ask yourself. “And wouldn’t it be better if the sauce were a balsamic reduction? And why don’t they top the pie with a seasoned ragout of diced meats and stewed vegetables?”

Nevermind, of course, that the pizza you’re envisioning would cost a great deal more than $5 to prepare. Forget the fact that you only have $100 dollars in your bank account, too. Just as it takes money to make money, you need to spend money in order to spend more money. Why else do you think the rich — who are always getting richer — have so much class?

If you want to achieve the sort of class that the rich do — by which we mean high class — you have to stop being afraid to purchase the finer things. When a little voice tells you to be reasonable in your spending, just shout it down with cries of “I’m so worth it” and “I deserve it.” And you really do, you know. It’s tough out there — a jungle, in fact — and we can’t think of anybody who works harder than you.

From there, you need to reassess the potent potables you’ve been consuming. Sure, 151 and malt liquor will get you all frosty and stink-faced, but drinking that kind of swill denotes low class. To rise in class, you’re going to want to invest your hard-earned megabucks in $200 growlers of IPA brewed inside the tomb of Ulysses S. Grant by a commune of wooly-whiskered singer-songwriter types who always insert a few coy in-jokes on the otherwise tasteful label of their product. Once you’ve mastered the art of purchasing expensive beer, you can move on to wine — a topic too complicated for our little column, and one that will most assuredly require you to discard those well-aged boxes of Boone’s Farm.

Next, consider purchasing a new set of wheels. In our opinion, there’s nothing more low class than driving around in your dad’s boxy old sedan. The rich wouldn’t be caught dead in a vehicular disasterpiece like that; they’re too busy “drifting” their supercharged Mazda Miatas and Infiniti G35 Coupes around town. Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to yet another signifier of your low-class origins: You probably don’t have a clue about the vibrant underground “drift racing” circuit in which the rich — exploiting coupled nonlinearities in tire force response — sideslip their sweet rides around the sharp corners of our fair city’s tortuous streets.

Once you’ve secured adequate transportation, the last impediment to your ascent into a higher class will be that rat hole where you’ve been living. As you’ve probably seen from movies about the rich, they live in enormous mansions where they’re surrounded on all sides by hot tubs, 150-inch flatscreen TVs and pimped-out “driftmobiles” — about as far from a rat hole as you can get. Some of the best rich — the kings and queens and whatnot — are waited on hand and foot by legions of low-class people.

Given that a mansion and a household staff are the most expensive items on your list, it might be years before you can afford them. This mustn’t deter you, though, because — as we noted earlier — you need to spend money in order to spend more money than you’ve already spent. Sam Patch — who shot to stardom in the 1820s for his ability to leap off cliffs — was famous for saying that “some things can be done as well as others.” When applied to this context, doesn’t that make perfect sense?

Should you find yourself stymied in the pursuit of these caviar-and-champagne dreams, our advice is to retreat deep into your shell and become the most bitter person imaginable. It’s unfair that fate has dealt you such a cruel hand, especially now that you know about the finer things. How could it have happened that your life is anything but perfect? Didn’t you deserve better? Aren’t you so worth it?

Oliver Bateman is the wealth manager at the Moustache Prosperity Club of America. If you’d like to learn how to develop a second revenue stream that will help you meet all of your financial dreams, visit moustacheclubofamerica.com to learn our state-of-the-art business methods, and check out our latest stock tips and tricks at http://twitter.com/#!/MoustacheClubUS.