Coffee Crone: Taming Coffee Blog

February 17 2007

Parsing My Decline Into Decadence For All To See

We're embarking on yet another trip to The Big City today, this one to CaffeTech to see if they can fix my broken coffee grinder. Yes, broken, as in brand new and broken into pieces parts before it's first use. It's too painful to talk about.

We'll probably return around dinner time, and I'm unlikely to be in a cooking kinda mood. I thought that tonight might be a perfect time to use part of that $100 restaurant gift certificate we received as a Christmas gift. Note the words, "part of".

It was against this background, that I read Wielding Power, Bottle by Bottle in the Fashion and Style section of the New York Times earlier today.

From the article:

Mark Birnbaum, an owner of Tenjune, said the club’s 28 tables are usually booked for Thursday, Friday and Saturday by 4 p.m. that day, despite the fact that the average bill for a table is around $3,500, and almost nightly at least one will climb as high as $8,000 or even $12,000. A bottle of Cristal Rosé Champagne alone costs $1,600 there.

Now, I'm actually pretty good at recognizing, appreciating, and honouring cultural differences. I think we can learn amazing things that have value in our own lives when we make the effort to really look at how people very different from ourselves approach things.

I also know that comparing live in Tamingville with life in NYC is pretty silly.

That being said, I am totally nonplussed. I keep trying to imagine having a life which includes a night out that costs as much as the purchase price of a reasonably decent used car or a bottle of wine that costs more than a minimum wage earner here makes in a month.

I should be able to do that; after all, I'm quite the snob myself.

That grinder I am bringing in for repair set us back $300 US, and plenty of folks have to work a week to earn that much. And although I tell myself that the grinder, once repaired, will last me a lifetime, as opposed to the $1600 bottle of champagne that will end up being flushed down a toilet, it may be pretty much the same thing.

I don't really understand the interplay between how much money we have and our values. I know that, like most folks, money is a big factor in the choices RT and I make in our day to day life.

What I don't know is where decadence begins. Does it begin when one plunks down $300 for a coffee grinder? Does the fact that I roast coffee in a ten year old bread machine using green beans that cost $5 a pound mitigate against that? When does what may be considered taste or individual preference become something else? When do we have some sort of obligation to do something that benefits someone else, rather than spend more money on ourselves begin?

Is it OK to indulge myself a bit if I write a cheque to some worthy cause before I do it, or will just feeling the occasional twinge of guilt be enough?