Have to work in order to maintain your current standard of living, then. "Money works for you" is a way of saying you can live off of dividends and interest. You can not have to work for the rest of your life and you'll be fine.

Hmm... that sounds good. Except it could just be "retired" too.

Depends, plenty of people with no money go to The Dalton, Spence, and the like. Old prep schools with big endowments give lots of scholarships.

True. Most of the families that I grew up with who had kids in private school were stretching their money somewhere else in order to afford it. Like, they were able to cover everything, but there were things like vacations and summer camp and stuff like that where they didn't spend as much as families with kids in public school, because that money had to go to tuition.

I'm really not good at figuring out perspective stuff with money. The street where I grew up, all the houses were identical. My father is a lawyer. Right now, the neighbor on one side is a mechanic, and the neighbor on the other side is an electrician. These houses as originally built were really tiny, so my parents and the mechanic neighbor both have added on to the houses -- made the kitchen bigger and added a family room. The electrician neighbor knocked down the house and built an entirely new one, about twice as big as the old one. Both neighbors have kids, and as far as I can tell, all those kids have just as many and as good if not more and better clothes and toys and everything as my sister and I had when we were kids. I have no idea how any of these numbers are supposed to work out.

I know that when I was a kid, there was never anything that I needed that I couldn't get because we couldn't afford it, but I also know that there were plenty of other kids in my town (which is by no means the richest town in the county) who got fancier vacations or more expensive clothes, or got a car when they turned 17, or stuff like that. And I knew kids in other towns who had way more than them -- got a really nice new car when they turned 17, rather than a safe reliable used car like the richer kids in my town got.

I'm sure that my summers spent in Kennebunkport definitely kill my chances at "woman of the people." Though that actually didn't seem to hurt GWB's "man of the people" image.

If being a fourth or fifth generation multi-millionaire couldn't hurt that image nothing could.

Boy, I've got all sorts of "woman of the people" credentials. No recent immigrants, family long-settled in our area, respectable craftsman/businesman father and stay-at-home mom, grew up in the house my father grew up in--too bad this was all in the borders of Appalachia, with attendant "HOW many of your generational lines merge?" issues. My family missed the "Cousin Bob's a little odd" genetic bingo, but some of my relatives would not do well on the public stage.

If being a fourth or fifth generation multi-millionaire couldn't hurt that image nothing could.

I'm sure there are things that would hurt it.

Speaking Latin.
Having lived overseas.
Being articulate.
Attending DragonCon.

When I was in college, some of my friends considered me rich because my parents were paying my tuition. I thought that the rich kids were the ones whose parents were paying full tuition (I had a partial scholarship) and also paying for their fraternity or sorority dues and spring break trips to Cancun.

We really should have moved in together.

BWAH! I know, right? It's so sad that we're not gay. Or I'd ask you to U-Haul right in!

ETA: Also, it's totally Megan's fault that I am ill-prepared to host Suzi tonight. 'cause Megan got me hooked on gin & tonics (tonight's is with Dogfish gin!) and I am too tipsy to clean up the office for her airbed.

What's sad is you are not downstairs with a cocktail in your hand, 'cause I'm finally leaving work.

I swear if I ever have to take over one of my lazy-ass colleague's projects again, I will cut someone.

ETA: So funny I wrote this before the above ETA!

Dude. I miss you.