EAVESDROPPING ON THE RICH

(sigh)

A couple of evenings ago Bill and I drove to St. Michaels, Maryland, a quaint little place off Maryland's Eastern Shore. St. Michaels bills itself as "the heart and soul of the Chesapeake Bay," encourages "sail-in" trips and visits to the town's artsy boutiques and galleries.

It's quaint, all right.

We dined at the Bistro St. Michaels, an upscale white-tablecloth restaurant where even the bus boys look like they just stepped out of GQ. At the table to our left sat Biff and Buffy -- he with the starched denim shirt and loosely permed hair cut expertly, I'm sure, to the tune of about $150. She wore a diamond tennis bracelet and two-carat chunk of ice on her ring finger. To our right was the entertainment.....a family whose dinner conversation kept us in stitches throughout.

If you had not heard these conversational gems and been privy to their easy-going, non-affected tone, you'd have thought it was a "Saturday Night Live" skit. But these folks are evidently old money and have lived this type of life FOREVER; therefore, their banter was genuine. The family seated beside us consisted of several mature adults and several young adults. The girls had that "Rory Gilmore" look -- stylish and understated chic. The younger men were attired in the brightly-colored look of casual preppy and are heading to law school. The adults discussed the possibility of a daughter's wedding on the "farm" and offered up hundred-dollar bills to the young men as they excused themelves from dinner for a night on the town. Dinner chatter among them covered an upcoming, much-anticipated cruise down the Nile; yet another trip to Dubai and Qatar (why Qatar, for God's sake???); the new riding and shooting facilities; Italian bocce balls; recent golf outings and handicaps. A waitress remarked to the matriarch how much she loved her accent, to which the woman replied, "Oh, honey, it only took me three weeks to get it." I found it terribly hard to contain myself and found myself actually chuckling out loud

(elegantly, of course!).

We were so pleased to know they're with us in the trenches, however, when Sir mentioned that they should retire to his pool for a cocktail and swim, to which the woman offered up that she was too fat to put on her swimsuit (she'd weigh in at about 110 pounds). He then asked, "Why wear a swimsuit?"

Thank heaven for REAL people!

The ambiance was graceful, the seafood exquisite, the waitstaff effusive. But the next-table conversation was what made this such a kick.

Money, money, money.

(LOL)