VANCOUVER – After what should have been a typical night of eating fresh-caught lobster stuffed inside still-breathing lobster, local millionaire Thane Anderson returned home despondent following a chance encounter with a much richer billionaire.
Anderson met the uber-wealthy Cartier Van Luven at a fundraiser for prep schools that can only afford one helicopter pad. The duo initially hit it off when they had their chauffeurs fight to the death over an exit-adjacent parking spot, but the evening took a sour turn when Anderson noticed Van Luven drinking far more expensive bottled water than he was.
“He’s sucking on Acqua di Cristallo Tributo a Modigliani like it’s Lauquen Artes,” Anderson complained to the bathroom attendants. “And I’m just sitting there choking down Evian Goldflake like a poor. Hasn’t anyone heard of water rights? Where’s the justice?”
As the night wore on, Anderson’s depression grew listening to Van Luven brag about his private island, his Pollock collection, and his other, even more private island, while Anderson could only afford a house on the Riviera and a Jackson Pollock collection he purchased with Sotheby’s Air Miles points.
Anderson tried to compensate by flashing his MasterCard Diamond at the dessert cart, but when the dining room began to close before they were finished with the amaretti tiramisu, Van Luven pulled out his VISA Unobtainium and bought the hotel. Once Van Luven revealed he was under indictment for seventeen cases of real estate fraud — to Anderson’s paltry two — Anderson’s melancholy elevated into a case of full-blown ennui.
“I guess I just needed some perspective to see how poor I really am,” Anderson later confided to his manservant before releasing him into a hedge labyrinth to be hunted for sport. “I thought I had it all,” he grumbled. “Turns out I only had way more than I needed.”
