Upper Tax Bracket Bathroom (Or Why I don’t Deserve the Hamptons)

I thought I knew what soap looked like.

I was wrong.

So I was staying at a friend’s house in the Hamptons, which is what one might call the Komodo dragon of wealth—somehow both mythical and real. It’s the kind of place people describe with awe and precision, like: “Oh, that’s where Bugatti summers with Baklava.”

But it’s all dragon tales meant to mystify, to capture the creature as this faraway, powerful, unbelievable thing. And it works, mainly because you just assume you’ll never meet one up close. No one truly believes in their gut of guts that they’ll be the one to earn a million, much as they think they might deserve it. And in so many of our hearts, we quietly think we deserve it. While we sit in our Admin desks. Waiting. Writing. Hoping for the lotto ticket, or the next, or the next, or the next to hit. And that’s enough to starve off the knowledge that the deserving are a different group from the fortunate (overlap most certainly implied). And so you never think you’ll reach behind the curtain, never think you’ll watch the bank account move the factor, never think you’ll see the house in the town in the most expensive place in the world up close.

And then you do.

See the nicest parts of the Hamptons, the ones my father told me about when I was young, and he was still teaching me the names and ages of the soon-to-be eligible bachelors in the respective Rockefeller and Vanderbilt families, are nearly picture perfect to the descriptions you read in magazines. The houses are pristine and manicured. The hedges, tall enough to prod one’s intrigue (a hedge to a Hamptons home is like a thong to a stripper— always leave them wanting more, but keep your peaks bare enough to stand proud). And the walls, painted a clean, clear white that you can tell was chosen with a level of care most reserve for wedding dresses or second husbands.

So I’m staying at a friend’s house in this very area, and it’s a beautiful house. It’s the kind of house that makes you understand how rooms are actually supposed to look And I’m there, by the grace of god and my Talented friend, in a home so elegant it made me realize I’d never actually understood the word “kitchen” until I saw one long enough to justify all seven letters. 

The shower in my private bathroom (yes, private) was tiled in white marble basketweave. The towels were so white they put the Wasps to shame. When I turned on the shower, the water fell like God Himself was spitting on me, or something else—but in a way that was neither derogatory nor kinky. Just holy. The pressure? Perfect. The temperature? Transcendent. I was at peace. I was glowing. I was wet.

And that’s when the trouble began.

With my hair soaked, I reached for one of the many sleek bottles arranged artfully in the corner. I pumped. I lathered. Or tried to. My scalp instantly felt… slick.

I paused. Read the bottle.

Body Oil.

Great. I’d just used a tablespoon of artisanal, probably-thousand-dollar-an-ounce body oil on my head. But hey, oil’s good for hair. I know I read that in some magazine somewhere. So we’re fine.

Next up: Shamp— no, conditioner. Fine. Conditioner before shampoo. That’s just a mask, now. I am giving myself a lovely, super-hydrating hair mask. I am curating my hair routine. I am a woman of means and patience.

So fine, hair is in a mask, I’ll find the shampoo later. I’m going to focus on the simpler tasks. Body wash. I’m going to wash my body. That’s it, a simple, un-fuck-up-able goal. So I reach for a bottle, rub it over my chest. It smells luxurious, feels decadent… and refuses to foam. At all.

I squint down at the bottle.

In-Shower Gel.

Below it, in italics: Self Tanner.

I looked at the bottle in disbelief. Then to myself. Then to the bottle. And then, to the white, white, white, expensive bathroom.

I’ve never scrubbed so hard in my life. I know self-tanner, I know her cruel tricks. I know the orange sheets and the orange collars, and the orange stains on denim shorts, and I did not have the time or the budget for that today. 

So I am exfoliating like my rent depends on it. Because, in some ways, it does. I could wipe it off, but the towels are too virginal to implicate in this. But the toilet paper…

I reach, dripping, from the shower, and start blotting myself with sheet after sheet. I’m dabbing like I’m clearing fingerprints from a crime scene, which, emotionally— again— I am. Each square turns from white to a golden-brown hue I can only describe as suburban Wasp’s seasoned chicken.

And it’s not working.

This is how I die. In a borrowed Hamptons bathroom, ruining a generational wealth guest suite with citrus-stained shame.

But just as I resign myself to prison or a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond—there! Behind the beauty products, like a gift from God:

A loofah.

Exfoliation. Self-tanner’s only weakness.

So I scrub like a woman with something to prove. I worked it up and down and over and— suddenly, it starts to lather. I look at it, pushing back the sponge.

In the Hamptons, the soap is in the loofah.

Fine.

Crisis one: averted. I am no longer melting self-tanner like the wicked witch of West Jersey. But I’m still wet, and there is still not a single surface I can risk tainting with my sun-kissed droplets. I step out, hovering over the floor. I make the brave, insane decision to dry myself, once again, using toilet paper.

Reader, it does not work. Not even a little.

I am getting myself as dry as a 30-year-old woman next to Pedro Pascal—which is to say, not dry at all—when I look down and realize the bathmat— the WHITE bathmat is now soaked in tanning runoff.

I leap off of it, slip, and catch myself on the sink. Which would be a relief, except— lo and behold! Orange fingerprints like a Cheeto thief. I scrubbed them away with my matted toilet paper. I mop the floor. I polish the chrome. I drip.

Finally, thankfully, I hit a point of containment—my body was no longer an active threat. But I was still wet, still tan, still living in some level of shame that shouldn’t exist outside of a Catholic confessional. I was shaking outside the shower like a wet chihuahua, terrified to touch anything but myself— and it was not the time for that.

And then I found it: the hairdryer.

A Brief Lesson

There are three settings on a Hamptons hairdryer:

• Hot

• Cold

• Turbo

I made the only logical choice.

I stood there, Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Woman, legs apart, arms raised, turboing myself dry one ass cheek at a time. (At a distance, because I’m not a monster.)

And finally, finally—I was done. No longer contagious. No longer leaking self-tanner across the spectrum.

Clean. Dry. Defeated.

Some people say money can’t buy happiness. And sure, I believe them. But it sure as shit buys body oil. It buys in-shower self-tanner. It buys loofahs that hide the fuckdamn soap. What it does not buy is clear labeling. Or mercy.

So maybe I don’t deserve a million dollars. No, sir, this dragon is still too big to ride. Not until I can confidently tell the difference between shampoo and self-sabotage.