Nobody

Shopping Trip

There's a weird thing about having money. You don't really spend it on yourself as much as people think you do. Sure, you have a couple Rolex watches in your drawer worth a year's pay to some people but it's just watches, they keep time. You've got nice cars, that you never drive and you probably just look at. You've got a private jet, but that's not really something you think about except as how to get from one place to another. All that good stuff that everyone looks at, really isn't for you even though you own it. You get your underwear and clothing from tailors, your furniture is what everyone else buys or old antiques and family heirlooms. Your maid and/or manservant buy your groceries if they aren't delivered. You know what you buy because you want it? Art. When your house doesn't have room for the art, because it's all full of what people before you bought, you buy art and donate it to schools who probably could have used the money more than some ugly picture of paint splatters.

I'd stopped buying schools art and had started just donating the money. For some reason Pru, my sisters and brothers didn't seem to approve, but the schools had been more than happy to show me around and let me see what my money had done.

Buying a furnace for a school who's furnace had gone out and the kids were in freezing classrooms seemed like a better application of the Bomber Family Legacy than some dumbass scribbles on a canvas a drunken gorilla could make.

So, when you're wealthy, I mean, really wealthy, your money seems to all be spent on making more money. Suits to meet with fellow cattle barons. Dresses for the women of the family. Jewelry for the ladies and cufflinks for the men. Fuel for the jet. Bull and stallion sperm. Pay for the ranch hands and workers. Insurance. Taxes. Ten thousand dollar a plate dinners to support some politician who only gave a shit about you because you had money.

That yacht you bought? Yeah, you'll probably see it once or twice a year. I knew men who had bought yachts they'd never seen before a hurricane destroyed them. That helicopter? You use that to go to meetings and stuff. I hated them, I'd always hated helicopters, but Pru and my sister loved them. That race car? Heather charged around in that hopped up muscle car of hers more than I ever saw that dumbass racecar my sister bought me for my thirtieth birthday and immediately had put in a climate controlled garage in Austin.

I think I saw that car twice. I know I never drove it.

Tony and I had gone to a bar when he visited me back when The Sergeant Major died. It didn't take credit cards and Tony teased me that he had more money than me. He opened his wallet and showed me about sixty bucks in assorted bills, then dared me to match him bill for bill.

I couldn't.

It had irritated the hell out of me at the time. That goofy ass grin of his as he asked me to name a single vehicle I drove around that had my name and not the Bomber Family name or company on it.

I couldn't.

The whole drive to Richmond Miss Lily-Rylee talked about interesting things. Apparently games were pretty high graphics, not the ugly barely visible ones of the 80's, you could even play games online with a few friends or even big ones with millions of players. Not taking turns, but in real time, everyone doing things at once. There were even persistent electronic worlds out there.

I'd never even heard of World of Warcraft before.

As Miss Lily-Rylee led me into the big office supplies store in Richmond I stopped and stared. Office supplies for me were pretty much handled by the people who worked for me.

holy shit, this place is huge

"So you used to play Dungeons & Dragons?" Miss Lily-Rylee asked me as we stood in the entry of the store.