Tuesday, May 13, 2008
What you do on New Year's Eve 1999 says more about your economic -- and social -- status than anything else.
Mar 26, 1999 | On a summer day in 1996, an executive I know boasted about his plans for Dec. 31, 1999. He, his wife and his friends had reserved a luxurious alpine chalet in Switzerland. It was a toss-up between that and Fiji, he said, but Switzerland won because the wine would be better and it would be "easier with the kids."
I pictured the party in Switzerland, the executive muttering, "10 ... 9 ... 8" with a plastic smile on his face, holding a bottle of champagne in one arm and his wailing daughter in the other, his son clutching the right pant leg of his tuxedo, and his wife in another room dancing with a wealthier executive, trying to execute the same disco moves she couldn't get the hang of 20 years ago.
Then it occurred to me: What the hell am I going to do for the millennium? I dismissed the question. I told myself that only an idiot would organize a party four years in advance. I was confident that by sheer smoothness of character, I would be found waist-deep in bubbles in a rented Paladian villa on the big night, slugging Veuve Cliquot from the bottle and fending off the groping advances of various supermodels.
But it dawned on me. I lack the two key elements necessary to make it into such a party: money and status. And the question about what to do that night hasn't gone away either. No, it has taunted me, beckoned me, demanded I do something extraordinary. For all the millennium's drummed-up significance, it's going to be impossible to stay in and shun the frivolity, mainly because people keep asking, "So what are you doing for the millennium?" And, no doubt, the first words to greet my hungover ears on Jan. 1, 2000 will be, "So what did you do for the millennium?" Other years it's been acceptable, even desirable, to flee the quaffing masses and sit contemplatively under a rural canopy of stars with someone you love and ponder the deeper questions of existence. This year such a cowardly act will only signal a stinging lack of popularity.
There is a reciprocal problem afoot, however. While I've spent months considering various grand possibilities, it's becoming clear now that my millennium New Year's Eve may have already been killed by overblown expectations. Few of us, in fact, will succeed in meditating with Tibetan monks at the stroke of midnight because the swelling demand for flights and hotel rooms has put prices through the roof.
Those of us lucky enough to make it to Ibiza or Hawaii will, therefore, be rich. That does not bode well for the festivities. As the first cocktails are sipped and dinner orders taken, table conversation will steer irreversibly toward interest rates, the merits of stocks over bonds, not to mention the skyrocketing prices of golf condos on South Carolina.
As wealthy revelers the world over take in the spectacles and delights of the millennium, I'll likely find myself here in England, where I'm living. On this island known for elegant restraint and legendary understatement, I thought I might be spared from such millennial excess.
Not so.
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