Just when we thought things were going OK, there were taxes to pay. The salary amount certainly has been adjusted for the cost of living, and then some, but we know we enjoyed it more when we had to lay all our money out on the table, green, blue, pink and yellow.
The time we were sent to prison did not help matters. Once would have been hard, but three times in a row made us really feel like everything in life was against us. We’re not even clear as to what it was for. We had duly paid the luxury tax, although we had no luxuries at the time. Once released (we had a card), we managed to acquire some property – but that got traded away very quickly to Clément, who had mercilessly built hotels before anyone else was even out of the starting gate.
To be honest, those new hotels are plastic, not as nice as those we remember in the days of the top hat and cigar. They fall over more easily than the small wooden ones. Plus, the bank itself is plastic, too. The money ebbs and flows through a plastic card shoved into a machine, singing its little electronic melody as the cash is siphoned away. Easy come, easy go, we said. We also said, we are sure that money should not be represented by plastic. This is one thing that we have learned.
In the end, we managed to own the Place de la Concorde and the Eiffel Tower just for a turn or two. But then we landed on Clément’s hotel on Notre Dame. Hasn’t anyone explained to him that the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, and the Gare du Nord aren’t for sale? That you can’t build a hotel on Notre Dame? Paris will never be sold off piecemeal, like Boardwalk, Marvin Gardens or Park Place, right? Aren’t we right about that one thing?
