Thank You, India!
Every person, place, or thing is just a gift from the universe to you, the white neurotic.
I hope you’re ready for a magical mystery tour into the deepest recesses of neoliberal delusion this morning, because Polly is in peak motherfucking form. It seems yet another upper-middle-class human in the world has amassed just enough wealth to feel a tiny bit secure for half a minute, thereby ushering in a Pandora’s box of fears around exactly how much more money it would take to feel that secure forever and ever and ever. This is the “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!” moment of every youngish wealthy upwardly mobile parent’s life, so let’s zoom in right before the winged monkeys arrive to rip this straw man limb from limb!
Our journey begins in the posh suburbs of one of our most elite, luxury-branded cities. As our heroine pushes her high-end stroller past adorable boutiques where charming juniper-grapefruit soaps are sold, past adorable bars where juniper-grapefruit gin cocktails are mixed, she is feeling deeply righteous and solid in her choices every step of the way. After all, our heroine’s precious pearl — now gently mewling that he wants a fucking coconut-acai Weezy Freezy from The Pressed Juicery, stat! — will soon be welcomed into one of several local adorable boutique preschools staffed by humans with PhDs in Developmental Psychology who speak in soft, understanding voices and smell like (you guessed it!) juniper and grapefruit.
But wait, something feels a teensy bit amiss! Just as Junior is finishing up his $15 organic Kanye-themed frozen concoction (the Juicery staff is currently contemplating a Kendrick-themed replacement name), a thick fog of sepia-toned sadness settles around our heroine’s face. Sure, Junior will be learning Italian with his high-end Platinum Elite Farter’s Club playmates within weeks, but… what happens after that? What if something… changes? What if (gasp) the market dips downward, and Daddy is laid off from his busy and important marketing job downtown, and he’s forced to pack all of his Star Wars Action Figures into a box and (gasp) bring them home? What if Mommy can’t get staffed on another insipid teen mystery-dramedy and her new book MOMMING! doesn’t sell and her brand new line of white linen overalls for infants (stocked at adorable boutiques in several luxury-branded cities worldwide) is suddenly deemed (gasp) impractical? What then? Why, Daddy might have to tap into his trust fund, something he vowed he would never, ever do, at least not until Junior was safely ensconced within Ivy League walls!
Sadness becomes fear becomes worry becomes panic, and before you know it, our heroine is frantically mapping out an emergency financial escape route on a Pressed Juicery napkin as Junior whines that he’s super fucking sick of frozen juice so somebody better get him some goddamn organic high-fructose-corn-syrup-free gummy bears stat or he is going to GO OFF. But even as our heroine adds and subtracts numbers, even as she calculates compound interest and depreciation, she can’t make the numbers lead to certainty, she can’t force the numbers to lead her directly from this adorable boutique street in this luxury-branded city to an adorable boutique survival bunker in New Zealand.
Enter Polly, who recognizes, in her infinite wisdom, that every person, place, or thing that you encounter in the wild is merely another adorable boutique message from the adorable boutique universe, custom-built just for you, a white person with money:
So many people need you, white lady! So very many of the world’s clawing, scrapping, unseemly caramel-tinted masses need you, with your infinite wisdom, with your neatly Kondo-Method-folded stacks of white linen baby overalls, with your giant, gorgeous white brain that recently reread The Handmaiden’s Tale from start to finish (it’s just so prescient, you see). You will help them to appreciate pressed juice, I’ll bet. You’ll show them the Kondo Method of folding, maybe. Who knows? The world is getting super duper hot, so hot that absolutely anything is possible!
The bottom line? You you you, white lady! You are needed. You are wanted. You matter. The universe wants you to know this.
Feel grateful that you matter so much, whitey. Go do some yoga at one of these fine juniper-and-grapefruit-scented yoga boutiques, staffed by soft-speaking humans with PhDs in Kinesiology, and know in your heart that you will always, always, always matter. You will always matter the very most. Because Polly says so. Because the white world says so. Because your money says so. So there.