THE PRICE OF MEDIOCRITY

How my summer experiencing the wasp life left me completely disillusioned

I thought Nantucket would be glamorous. I thought it would smell like fresh linens and baby blue hydrangeas. I thought I’d be brushing shoulders with Kennedys and publishing magnates, sipping Champagne on a boat in a cashmere wrap, maybe writing a new set of jokes with a Montblanc pen. I thought I was about to crack open the delightfully polished secrets the elite had been gatekeeping on this little island.

I thought I’d catch a glimpse of the good life.

Instead, I got a crash course in what happens when wealth is stripped of taste, purpose, or joy.

The houses were uniformly drab: dreary gray colonials that looked as if they were designed by Felicity the American Girl Doll if she took Prozac. The town square had the charisma of a New England-themed airport terminal.