Stop asking. YOU ARE NOT INVITED.

I would make an excellent rich person. I know this because I make an extraordinarily shitty poor person; therefore, using the law of opposites, I would be equally as awesome a rich person as I am an awful poor one.

The way I see it is, rich people make a lot of mistakes with their money. Like, Nicholas Cage. He recently had to declare bankruptcy and I’m pretty sure (but I’m not going to research it because I’m feeling kind of lazy today) that part of the problem was that he kept buying castles. Well, Nicholas Cage, that seems like a very stupid use of your money. First, once you started wasting your talent on things like National Treasure, you had to know that the money wasn’t going to keep pouring in, so you probably should invest, and buying real estate is a tenuous investment at best. I mean, I don’t know a lot about things, and I’m not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but I’m pretty sure I’ve read in a few places that the real estate market sucks right now. And castleS? Like, MULTIPLE castles? Why would anyone need more than one castle? I can see the appeal of one castle – I mean, who can’t, having your own castle would be awesome, you could stage, I don’t know, your own version of A Game of Thrones in your foyer, and wear period gowns to dinner, if you wanted, because, hey, you’re that chick that owns a CASTLE, you’re already kind of branded an eccentric, what the hell – but unless you’re royalty, you don’t really need more than one castle. OK, well, maybe two castles. Maybe a home castle and a vacation castle on an island, or something. But really more than two castles is just showing off.

And Wesley Snipes. He got in trouble for not paying his taxes. I know, the more money you make, the higher your tax bracket is. I work for an accounting firm. I have above-average knowledge of how the tax bracket system in our country works. But what makes you think you don’t have to pay them? I know you couldn’t have forgotten them. It’s all the news talks about, come April, that the 15th is fast approaching. I mean, I live hand-to-mouth and I pay my damn taxes. You make like, say, a million bucks a year and you can’t be bothered to pay the government what you owe them? Pay your damn taxes! The longer you let it go, the more they accrue and the more you owe. Also, there are penalties and such. Also, I can’t imagine you’re all too popular in prison when you’re in for tax evasion. You’re probably pretty low on the totem pole when you did something that stupid. “What are you in for?” “Killed and ate my mother. You?” “Refused to pay THE MAN!” “Yeah. Bottom bunk. Also, I own you now.”

If I were a rich person – like, enough money that I could play with it, and still have a cushion to fall back on – I would really be truly awesome at it. I would invest enough that I would have plenty to live on forever. Then the following conversation would happen with my boss:

“Hi, Amy. Today, I’m going to need you to do this copying, file these two rooms full of files, cover the phones, do this job that really doesn’t matter but I like to make work for you to do when I have time to think of such things, and also do all of the things that actually fall under your job description. Oh, also deal with the copier repairman who you think is a serial killer and is going to stuff your body in his trunk. And I think from 12-2 people are going to make irrational demands of you, so pencil that in.”

“SUCK IT.”

Next up: my own private island.

I want an island. Castle? Eh, sure. Only if Nicholas Cage doesn’t come with it, though. No one needs that kind of bad juju hanging around their rockin’ castle. See, when I was a kid, my great-uncle had this camp on an island which has been my dream home ever since. You had to take a boat to get there. (This will come in handy when the apocalypse comes, because you’d have plenty of warning and time to fortify if you were about to be invaded. Also stalkers and murderers, who I am always sure are waiting just outside my apartment, would not be able to find me. Although it would not protect much against zombies, because they can just walk underwater. They don’t need to breathe.)  This camp was excellent. It had a boathouse with a dock you could just dive off into the water any time you wanted. In the boathouse was a huge bar so you could get a drink and sit out and look at the lake. There was an attic that you could only get to by accessing a secret hatch in the ceiling full of toys and old things and a weird miniature piano. There were a million books. The whole thing was surrounded by the woods, so you could explore. It was perfect. This is what I want. I want an island.

No. You can’t come to my island. OK, this is very important. I know, once I get my island, everyone’s going to be angling for an invite. It’s a PRIVATE island. That not only means I don’t share the island with other HOMES, it means I don’t share the island with HANGERS-ON. I may invite people, on a very select basis, to my island. But don’t be calling me up, all, “Hey! How’s life on that super-awesome island! Man, I have a vacation coming up, I WONDER what I could DO with my TIME, I have NOTHING planned!” Because I will recommend you take a staycation. You cannot guilt me into letting you come to my island. Have I mentioned enough that I don’t like people? Here’s a true story for you: when I was a kid, I had my first sleepover. I was very excited. I invited over a friend. We rode bikes and played with Barbies. And a couple of hours later, I went to my mother and said, “I’m ready for her to go home now. Can we send her home now?” Five-year-old me didn’t like people; rich grown-up me won’t like them, either.

You know who IS invited to my island?

All the animals. I’m going to go all Noah up on my island, yo.

No, seriously. I want all the animals. I want all the dogs and cats I haven’t been able to have because of space or time or whatever other restrictions I have placed on my life. But also! I want goats and cows and horses and random zoo animals. But I don’t want monkeys. Because when I was young, we went to Parc Safari in Canada? That is a drive-through animal park. I don’t know why it’s spelled with a “c.” I guess that’s French. Anyway, in the monkey area, there was a sign not to slow down or stop, because the monkeys would swarm your car. And the guy in front of us apparently was an illiterate because he stopped to take a photo. AND MONKEYS SWARMED HIS CAR. As our carful of parents and kids watched both gleeful and horrified, monkeys STRIPPED HIS CAR OF ANYTHING SHINY. Like, the chrome flashing and the antenna and the license plate. They were more efficient than a chop shop. Ever since, I have had a recurring nightmare that I am trapped somewhere and unable to move and there are monkeys. SO MANY MONKEYS. With their fast, cunning hands. NO MONKEYS ON MY ISLAND.

Also on that trip an ostrich pecked my dad’s best friend really hard in the stomach and I got to feed a giraffe out of my hand. I’m pretty sure due to lawsuits these things can’t occur anymore.

Anyway. All the animals. Animals who are broken! Animals with missing legs! Animals that people have given up on! I will be an animal hoarder, only not gross like on the show Hoarders because the animals will not be swimming in their own filth. See, I like animals more than people. An island of animals is kind of the most awesome thing I can think of. Well, except that movie The Island of Dr. Moreau. That was not the most awesome. The Val Kilmer version? So distressing. Marlon Brando! And a mini-Marlon Brando! So awful!

Now I have my own island, with no people on it SO STOP ASKING, and all the animals and they are awesome (oh, also no birds, they annoy me, except for hawks, which don’t really count, because they are raptors, and exciting and not all flitty and high-strung and pecky) I can do the other things in life that I want to do, which are (after caring for the animals, of course):

Being completely and totally lazy
Reading
Randomly donating money to causes anonymously that need it to see how happy it makes people
Playing for hours online and not worrying about wasting time because I HAVE NOTHING BUT TIME
Watching every single television show and movie that I have ever had the slightest interest in, ever
Eating and drinking fancy things like petit fours
and
being more lazy.

Seriously, this is what rich people don’t do that I think they should. Why don’t more rich people give poor people that need it their money once and a while? I’m not saying that every ten minutes they should donate $100,000 to Save the Whales, or something (ooh, also, I’m totally going to have fish. Maybe not whales, but I do like fish. They are restful and pretty. But they die a lot on me. I’m like a fish mass-murderer. I don’t know what’s up with that. Fish commit suicide on my watch. Except algae eaters! I can grow those suckers to the size of the tank. Now that I think about it, I might have an algae issue) but there are plenty of places that a small amount of money can go a long way. Like Donors Choose. Teachers go on there and need, like, $200 so they can buy books. BECAUSE THEIR SCHOOL CAN’T AFFORD BOOKS. Seriously? How can rich people not give kids books? Maybe that’s WHY rich people don’t give to charities like this, because they wouldn’t be rich for very long. BOOKS. Or sometimes DRY ERASE BOARDS. Because schools can’t afford these things anymore.

Best rich person ever, on my eccentric island full of three-legged one-eyed pets and books and NO PEOPLE. Well, maybe some people. But I might want you to go home after an hour or so. I can’t guarantee anything. Oh, and no llamas. Llamas SPIT and DROOL, in case you weren’t aware, and that is GROSS. Rich people don’t have time for grossness. Too busy being fancy.