clovehitched | On Being Middle Class

OK, so I freely admit that I'm irredeemably middle class. I live in the middle of Cambridge. I previously worked in microelectronics. I drive a Toyota Prius. I'm writing this on an Apple laptop resting on my cherry wood dining table. Looking up at the bookshelf, I see books by Carl Sagan and China Mieville. I'm about to get married in a Cambridge college. I don't just drink Scotch, I drink single malt Islay whisky, I own a wok and chopsticks (and am proficient with them), and so on.

But I do at least take comfort from not being like these people.

I mean, I don't even know what quinoa is, and in a sort of inverted snobbery, remnants of my east midlands coalfields upbringing kinda way, regard this as probably a good thing.

But then I realised that when I'm feeling inexplicably tired, and want properly waking up with a nice cup of builder's tea, with milk and sugar, rather than some of the green earl grey, or white jasmine, or rooibos, or sencha that I have in my cupboard, the "builder's tea" I end up making is Assam, brewed in a Bodum glass teapot, whitened with milk from a bottle that was delivered to my doorstep this morning, sweetened with unrefined brown cane sugar. This led to realising the awful, awful truth; while I may never buy an Aga (and please shoot me if I do), and regard organic food as being "a bit of a con, really", I really, really am like those people.

I'm doomed!