A Wikkid good trip to New England. Part Three.

Our last stop in our three city tour of New England was in Greenwich, Connecticut. Home of the rich, powerful, and morally bankrupt. I was going to title this post, ""Twenty-three hours in SnobWich." But that would be an insult. To snobby people.

This was me trying to get a donut for Parker at a bakery in Greenwich:

Them: What can we get for you ma'am?

Me: Can I get a donut and a coffee?

Them: We don't have donuts.

Me: Oh. Well... what do you have?

Them: We have French pastries.

Me: Of course you do. Ok, well then I'll just take two of those chocolate chip cookies.

Them: Actually these are gluten free macrobiotic cookies made with organic soy and free range eggs.

Me: Oooookkkkkaaaayyyyyy. And I'll also have coffee.

Them: We have french pressed fair trade organic coffee from Guatemala.

Me: Super. I'll take it on ice.

Them: We don't have ice.

Parker took one bite of the so-called cookie and promptly spit it out on the sidewalk.

Greenwich is an amazing and terrible town. The town is the amazing part, the people are the terrible part.

We were there for just one night so that we could visit TempelsbestfriendGeorgia who was there visiting her aunt.

So we get to the mansion - it was in fact a mansion - and the minute we walk in my friend Rebecca (Georgia's mother) says, "Make yourself at home, I have to run to the store." And just like that I am left alone in the mansion with my two children. One of them has meth-like ADD and the other has a serious case of Imusttouchtheshinything-itis.

The girls are running around like 13-year old boys in a whore house and squealing and screeching and I'm chasing them screaming Do not touch ANYthing! and then we finally have sort of a calm moment when they found the pool table so I go in the other room for ONE minute and then I hear BAM! and I come tearing in the kitchen I told you not to touch any ---

And then I see the biggest most frantic freaked out squirrel leap from the couch to the silk drapes and then PING! tear across the kitchen and SMASH! hit the window. And I'm thinking really? Really?! You leave me here alone in this house for ten minutes and this shit happens on my watch? The girls and I opened every door and with much screaming (on their part) and much flailing of arms (on my part) we tried to shoo the thing out the door. But it ran up the chimney instead. I figured that must be where it had come from.

There were no visible cracks inside the crystal egg on the mantle. Ahem.

As an awful coincidence, the most gracious and sweet woman with whom we were staying was hosting a dinner party for eight Greenwich society matrons the night we were there.

I don't think I can properly describe the scene. I am simply too inept a writer to capture it. These women - they don't adhere to any social norms for conversation that I have ever witnessed. It was something altogether different.

There was no back and forth, no reciprocity. It was simply a constant stream of bragging vomit meant to impress. Meant to out-do.

It was gross.

It was a Three Handed Brag Game. Someone would make an opening statement, a second person would bump number one out of contention for the title with her statement, and then boom! the third person would pull the trump card and win all the marbles. There was never a fourth. The game seemed to play in rounds of three.

One: I've just gotten back from our house in Sea Island.
Two: I'm just headed to my house at the Cape. It was built in 1910 you know. I do hope it's weathering all this rain.
Three: Oh you would love my house in Little Compton. It was built in 1878 and is simply covered in handpainted murals.

Score!

One: I just had brunch with Mrs. X.
Two: I've just hosted a dinner party for Mrs. Y.
Three: I've just sponsored Mrs. Z at the club.

Score!

One: We had the loveliest charter out to the Cape last week.
Two: We've just redecorated the Gulfstream.
Three: My daughter is taking our 727 every weekend to visit her boyfriend.

Score!

One: I'm hosting the Breast Cancer Event at my house this season.
Two: I'm chairing the Breast Cancer Committee this season.
Three: I had cancer this season.

Score!

It was brutal. Then when we were sitting on the patio eating dinner one of the kids in the pool (they were being watched by a babysitter) started crying. I was so happy, finally a reason to flee the table! So I leap up and rush towards the pool and careen smack into the biggest bucket of molten Citronella wax the world has ever seen causing me to fall down and an enormous wax tsunami wave to spill out onto the granite flagstone patio. Yep. I fell. On my face.

So I'm covered in smelly wax thinking, Oh shit! how am I going to get this off the granite? And you know not one of them helped me up or asked me if I had burned my leg. Nor did they inquire to the state of my long white linen Old Navy skirt, may she rest in peace. I loved that skirt.

Bitches man.

Then at the end of dinner the maid comes out and whispers in my friend's ear, "There's a squirrel in the living room."

My squirrel! He's back! Rebecca, the maid, and I went in to and cornered the little fella and shooed him out the door. To which one of the women said, "My lord was that a rat?!"

I wanted to say Yes. Yes, that was a rat. There are rats in the living room. Which is where we keep them right before we slaughter them in the kitchen. What were you planning to eat for dinner?

But I didn't.

I just rolled my eyes at her and cracked my skirt a little so I could sit down. It was a bad few hours. Especially since Rebecca, my touchstone to normal, kept leaving me with those women. I spent a lot of time sneaking off to the kitchen to hang out with the maid.

Ok, so I'm a hater. I'm clearly prejudiced against the super-rich. It's my burden and I will just have to learn to live with it.

But it was a nice 23 hours with the kids. And Greenwich is a beautiful town. And now we're home. With loads of donuts. Good old fashioned enriched wheat flour deep fried donuts.