12. Meet the Obscenely Wealthy

Including a pony with a bigger net worth than most mid-level office managers.

The nicest home I've ever been to in Paris belonged to a family I babysat for. The address had its own Wikipedia page because a long-forgotten poet had been born there over a century ago. The family owned the entire building, and they had the kind of huge windows overlooking the Seine that I had previously only seen in department stores.

The dad also had his own Wikipedia page, mostly for insider trading. He gave me unlimited money to take his son to McDonald's and chauffer him around in Ubers. For an obscenely rich kid, he seemed nice, and I won his approval by letting him secretly play Mario Party after bedtime.

The mom stressed me out. While the son was at swim lessons or karate class, I was supposed to go back to the house and iron clothes. Once I accidentally scorched a Uniqlo hoodie, and I proceeded to run all over the Left Bank trying to find an identical replacement. Eventually I found a very similar one at Gap Kids, and when I presented it to the mom, she looked as if I had deposited a steaming turd in her hand.

Despite this, as a nosy person, I was in heaven. These were the richest people I had ever encountered in Paris, so I studied the contents of their fridge, the brand of their toilet paper, the cars in their garage, the books on their shelves, the artwork on their walls, and the idiosyncrasies of their daily lives. (The mom once threatened to take away the son's pony if he didn't do his homework.)