I Wish I Was An Olsen Twin

I do.

Mary-Kate, specifically.

Not because she’ll be twenty one next week. I mean, peeing in parking lots at closing time is fun and all, but I’ve come to appreciate the subtle joys of toilet paper on demand. Also dry underpants.

Not because she’s so gosh-darn skinny, either. Although it is true that if I tried to sit on her lap I’d probably wind up having to pick her out of my butt like an atomic wedgie.

And not because she’s embarking on her fourth career before she’s old enough to buy a handgun. Hell, by the time I was her age my resume already boasted stints as a fry cook at McDonalds, a chambermaid at the Budget Inn, a counselor at horse camp (Head Girls, thank you very much), a bell-desk sitter and a bookstore clerk at Spag’s. (When the gun license arrived I tacked on “Varmint Hunter, If You Will,” just in case I should decide to run for president someday.)

Not even because she has like thirteen brazillion dollars. I -- well okay, she’s got me there.

But no.

I wish I was Mary Kate Olsen because she recently considered buying an old Federal-style townhouse in Manhattan. The place was (is?) listed for $3.695 million (oh, why not just round it up to $3.7 for crying out loud? At those prices, is anyone really bickering over a measly five thou?), and is apparently in such bad shape that realtors are walking clients through it with a flashlight and hip-waders. I made up the hip-waders, but the flashlight part is true: even the advertisement for the place admits that it’s “in need of a full renovation.”

So what’s to envy? Her response:

“This is three million to renovate,” she said.

“And it’s a two-year ordeal,” she said.

“And I just can’t do that,” she said.

And walked away.

She could so totally do that! She’s a brazillionaire! She could buy the place for four mill, pay somebody else to worry about the renovations for another four or five, rent out the top two floors of the Plaza while it happens and she’d still be a brazillionaire. But she didn’t.

So the question is:

With a resume like mine, how did I wind up dumber than an atomic wedgie?


Tomorrow, back to Puritan Manifesto, I swear to god...