Picture Perfect

Rooms in magazines are picture perfect. There is a high fashion mag that besides skin and bone models in impossible clothing, features the rooms of  rich people. The filthy rich, not just the ordinary ones. None of the pages are festooned with other than the subject, of course, adorned in designer garb on a well-toned, personally trained body draped on the shining accoutrements. The rooms are either sparse in glass and steel, all whites and greys with slashes of hot coloured oils on the walls above the white leather or they are draped in antique textiles hundreds of years old, in riots of exotic and faded but studied intone shades. Now, that is all well and good since few of us could or would endure the prices of the attire or the furnishings that run well into the thousands, if not more, but what are we mere commoners looking at? Do these jet setters live in the surroundings we see? Do they put their feet up on the gold elephant coffee table, drink in hand, to watch a game on TV? Likely not, since a high moment of cheering for the team, might cause a spill on that four hundred year old piece of delicacy or worse still, onto that hand-knotted Egyptian silk carpet of yore. And the kitchens are not for cooking. I don't see the holder with spoons, tongs and ladles hanging out anywhere, and with all of those ovens and fridges, where is the towel rack and pot holder? The sinks are wonderful and taps, oh my, such taps: even ones right over the stove so the cook doesn't have to walk over to the sink to fill up the pasta pot.  The counters are so gorgeous you'd never think of disgracing them with a lump of dough or a blob of batter. But when we leave the kitchen and head on down to the bedroom, yep, there is the closet. There are five pairs of immaculate shoes, all designer, and even the jazzed-up runners are spotless. The clothes are hung with actual air space between each en tone suit, an unheard-of luxury amongst  people I know. The bed has never been slept in obviously due to its pristine ironed appearance, and the number of pillows would stun even Cleopatra. What do these people do with  twenty different pillows when it's time to go to bed? Then there is the bathroom. No one in this house brushes their teeth apparently, for there is no air-dry holder visible and used toothpaste tubes? Not to be seen in fashion homes. The jars are all crystal of course and there are so few, that I can't imagine the residents rushing around in the morning getting ready for work with Chanel and Gucci perfumes only. The bathtubs are enormous and must take three tanks of hot water and an hour to fill. The floors are marble of course, nice for skating when wet.  But no one is wearing a cast, so they must good at it, when exiting the swimming pool of a tub. Nothing looks used. It's all without spot. In fact, I suspect that no one lives in this photo perfect wing but that somewhere in this ivy covered mansion, there is a cramped, cosy spot where one can put feet up on the couch, loll back in a tacky bathrobe with the family dog and drink hot chocolate, mug in hand to see Casablanca for the fourteenth time and shed tears on a pile of old threadbare cushions.