Best of Beth Ashley: Is it real or is it consumer insanity?

Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2007.

Several weeks ago I read a story about O.J. Simpson that has lingered in my mind.

A judge in Los Angeles had ordered Simpson to give up his Rolex wristwatch, valued at up to $22,000, in partial payment for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.

Simpson gave up the watch — but it proved to be a fake, worth at most about $125.

My mind was totally boggled.

Are $1 watches interchangeable with $22,000 ones?

And if so, why would anyone buy the real one?

It’s a mystery why people would spend that much on a watch, anyway, when watches are used to tell time and Timex watches can do the job for way under $100. Has consumerism gone berserk?

Has vanity become insanity?

I realize we live in a free country, and a capitalist country at that, where people are free to spend their money as they see fit.

Maybe it’s just my New England Puritanism that shudders at the idea of such conspicuous consumption, so wasteful a use of assets. I mean, jeez. When people are starving in the world, can we really justify a $22,000 watch (for no useful purpose I can think of)?

Forgive me, all you nice Marinites with high-priced timepieces. I know you’re not evil. I’d love to hear what you really think.

A friend whom I otherwise admire insists on telling me the price of everything he owns. Do I really care that his shoes cost $400? And am I supposed to shrivel because mine cost less than his?

I don’t understand the mentality.

Oh, another thing, while I am ranting:

I cannot believe the amount of money people will pay for a dinner out, as though the $150 dinner at some of the Bay Area’s most sought-after restaurants is really five times tastier than the $30 dinners elsewhere.

I remember paying $100 once at Gary Danko and feeling guilty for weeks afterward.

When Ursula and I went to New York, a decade ago, we splurged every day on dinner, but we stayed in truly spartan accommodations ($35 a night) to cover the tab.

I read a restaurant review recently citing a truly exotic meal — halibut cheeks with polenta stained with black squid ink, I think it was — and my head simply swiveled in disbelief. Are our stomachs really so precious that we must down such esoterica, much less pay the price?

For some people, food is their hobby, their pastime; their taste buds are no doubt more finely tuned than mine.

But still, patronizing high-end restaurants on a regular basis is a wee bit indulgent, isn’t it, considering that some people have little on their tables at all?

I mean, could we please share the wealth? (Of course, this lecture is aimed at me, too; I’m no saint.)

Recently I saw a newspaper ad marketing a Waterford crystal baseball commemorating Barry Bonds’ 756th home run.

The cost: $165.

The idea of spending $165 on a crystal baseball honoring a questionable achievement stuns my frugal sensibilities.

And it isn’t even a baseball.

But I have no doubt there are people out there who will buy it.

It will go well with their Rolex watches.