Cheap Shingles

Fifteen minutes before the school bus arrived, Gene the roofer came in the house with the signed contract and for more chit-chatting.

Hi pizza-guy. said Ian, the semi-mute boy. He thinks the only visitors to our home come bearing frisbees with cheese and pepperoni. Yes, it’s a sad commentary on our eating habits during these past couple weeks of sore throats and sniffles.

Gene is okay. Since we bought our fixer-upper last year, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to contractors. It usually just takes a couple of questions, and they start spilling their guts to me. They show me the pictures of their kids or rifle through my record collection. Gene was tossing the football in the livingroom with my kid as I ran to answer the phone.

Then the conversation with these guys often turns to how they hate rich people, who treat them with disdain and try to nickel and dime the workers. The guy is putting up a million dollar home and he wants to save $100 by putting in cheap shingles. What an asshole. In their line of work, their biggest clients are building McMansions in the next town over and class tension can’t be escaped.

On Sunday, I buried myself in a quick novel, too sick to manage anything useful. I read The Nanny Diaries, the story of an NYU student who worked as a nanny for the super-rich, upper Eastside families. The mothers don’t work or watch their children, and instead use their time to shop and socialize. They fire their workers for no cause, gyp them of salary, and ignore their kids. The little boy in this story walks around with his father’s business card pinned to his shirt, because this is his only contact with the man.

As novels go, it was average in terms of things like character development and plot arc. But it was an interesting bit of social history, especially if you’ve lived in the city and you know this type fairly well. The authors, who were themselves nannies in New York City, clearly had grudges that they settled with the book.

I was tempted to write a conclusion to these random observations that class tension is increasing in this country, as the gulf between rich and the poor expands. But it’s always been like this. My grandfather, the Maitre D’ at the Waldorf, used to say that the richest clients were the crappiest tippers handing him a thin dime at the end of the evening. The best were the working class guys, who saved up a year to afford one special dinner with their families.

So, hating rich folks is an American tradition that continues on. de Tocqueville would be proud.