The Standard of Living - Dorothy Parker

The Standard of Living by Dorothy Parker is about these two women who dress nice, work together, have a way about them that lets passerbys know that they aren't looking for cheap thrills, but they would definitely take a diamond ring or two. These two best friends play this game called "what would you do if you have a million dollars". However, there is a trick to the game. The one girl, Midge, comes up with a twist to the game that she and Annabel play. She explains to Annabel that you are getting the money from someone who has recently passed away, never knew you personally but just saw you one day and thought that you should always have nice things. Also, you have to spend all the money on yourself and none of it on someone else; therefore, you can't buy your parents a house or get your friends a trip to Paris or anything.

The story goes on and towards the end it stops being a biography of the two girls and starts to have a small plot. The girls are strolling along Fifth Avenue, like they always do on their lunch break, and see a double strand of pearls in a shop window. They start to guess back and forth how much the pearls might be, saying a thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars. The one girl dares the other to go inside and get a price, so they go together. They find out that the pearls are worth $250,000. They walk out.

Once the girls leave the store, they don't hold their heads up so high anymore. They were in shock about the price and they change the game to "what would you do if you had ten million dollars". I think what the story was getting at is that no matter how much money you have, it's never really enough. $250,000 would've been a quarter of the million they had gotten, which they wouldn't have given away for a string of pearls...at least not willingly. But money can't buy you everything. Playing the game of being Ms. Rich may be fun, but it's only a game. And buying those pearls will only give you happiness for everytime you wear them. That can't take the place of a friendship or of a daily stroll on Fifth Avenue.

The fact that the girls changed the rules at the end to include $9 million more made me stop and think of why they really did it. Did they change it so that they wouldn't feel bad about buying the pearls if they had the money? Or did they do it so that they could feel good about buying more than one set of those pearls if they really had the money? Material things are not everything as much as some people cherish them. You can't always get what you want and you can't play games forever. The game is selfish. The rules they created were made so that they wouldn't feel bad about playing the game in the first place and so they wouldn't feel bad about being selfish with the money. They were playing a selfish fantasy game that they could only wish was real. It's sort of like that recent story in the news about the man and wife who won the lottery. The man hid all the money from his wife, left her, cut off all the utilities and cable and what not, and went to court saying he didn't owe her a dime. Selfish. But Annabel and Midge's fantasy was real for this guy that won $2.5 million and he decided to go on and be selfish. It was a game to the fictitious girls, but it was a reality for him.

I will conclude with a favorite quote from Dorothy Parker:

“If you want to see what God thinks of money, just look at all the people He gave it to.” - Dorothy Parker