is affluence a trap?
This week I took my eight-year-old to see an orthodontist. She operates out of oak-panelled consulting rooms in Cavendish Square and is the most beautiful dental professional I’ve ever met. Twenty minutes later and £140 poorer, I’d learnt that before braces and the like even hoved into view my daughter must see a paediatric dentist, at further ruinous expense. Who knew there were such things? I realise now that if I’d stayed loyal to our local Blackheath toothsmith, she would have ended up with a perfectly serviceable set of English gnashers and we’d have been none the wiser. As
it is we’ve set foot in the world of the rich, and there’s no going back. Harley Street dentistry is now a necessity, not a luxury, and the same applies to every other little extra (an expensive hair cut, a decent bottle of wine, renting that Tuscan villa again) that turns from treat to essential in the blink of an eye. Affluence: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT
SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT
go back...
