There's a group of Republican women in D.C. who call themselves "Trophy wives in Training."

OMG! You're kidding, right? Please, tell me you're kidding.

Please, this is the town where the Junior League has a storefront in some of the most expensive real estate in the city.

The first thing anyone asks when introduced to someone is, "What do you do?" If the job doesn't have the right cachet or is too many degrees separated from a power source, the offending person is discarded and left to commiserate with the rats.

Ha! True. I spent a summer at the front desk of Very Important Publicity Firm, mostly bored out of my mind. The clients were a mix of big companies and political individuals. Once or twice a week I got to tell a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young thing to wait, and while he waited, he would chat me up in as naked a "Whom do you know who would be useful to me?" way as possible. It was hilarious!

Of course, during that summer I also spoke on the phone with someone who spelled out his name to me (some complicated travel arrangement), and he spelled it out Yastrzemski, and I was just knowledgeable enough to ask him, "oh, like that baseball player?" and he laughed and said yes. Now, since AFAIK Yaz is still alive, there is the slim possibility that I actually was talking TO that baseball player.

since AFAIK Yaz is still alive

He is.

Now, since AFAIK Yaz is still alive, there is the slim possibility that I actually was talking TO that baseball player.

Considering he laughed, I'm pretty sure you were.

I think this is a fairly common first question no matter where you are.

It's not out of a desire to get to know someone better. It's mercenary in its ultimate form. The implication is that your job better be able to move me ahead, or you're not worth my time.

I get blank stares from people about my job but that's because it's in a very niche industry that most people don't even realize is an industry.

Dollars to donuts that you wouldn't get that reaction here. It's a basic survival skill: know something about everything.

Yeah, DC has it's own way of looking at things.

Understatement of the century. Preach it, sistah!

Damn. I hoped feminism had killed the poufy white dress.

Nutty, you should read Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Gilman, if you haven't. The book as a whole is fabulous and laugh-out-loud funny, but the essay toward the end (the actual Pouffy White Dress essay) addresses this topic in a really interesting and new way.

Actually, I've been pimping this book to everyone. Love it.

The discussion of "class" returns to money very quicky among Americans, you will note.

It is a very different thing, elsewhere. The American Edith Wharton was also interested in this. What separates the "uppercust" from the "well-monied" was an ongoing motif, for her.

And here, if the money is gone, most of the clout goes too. The first generation might get the invites, but forget it after that. I don't think that carries if you have an actual title.

if the money is gone, most of the clout goes too.

Yeah, whatever happened to genteel poverty anyway?

I could name the ones here, but that's because their names are on everything and usually in the paper (not just the society pages).

There was a huge scandal when one of them was finally arrested for shoplifting at Nemian-Marcus.

Considering he laughed, I'm pretty sure you were.

Well, FWIW, he was a very nice and chatty guy, even to so lowly a person as the front desk receptionist, and he never came to the office so I have no idea what he looked like.

When we look back on our lives, sometimes I am amazed at the connections not-made-at-the-time.