Dateline: Seaside. Money Can’t Buy Me Taste.

Well, outside of Beverly Hills, here’s something you certainly don’t see every day. A $395,000 Rolls Royce Phantom.



Spying this thing just sitting in a gravel parking lot was like running into a co-worker in a massage parlor. The initial recognition is there, but it’s so out of context, it takes you a while to process the information. Except that, upon seeing the Phantom, you don’t have to offer up something lame like, “Oh…hey…yeah…um, good to see you. I’m, uh, I’m just here because of this kink I’ve had in my back for the last week. You know…the one you’ve probably heard me talking about around the office? The kink, you know, in my back? Remember me talking about it? I probably talk about it all kinds of times.”

But even covered in birdshit from sitting uncovered beneath a tree for what appears to have been weeks, this is still an impressive machine. (By the way, anybody who would buy this kind of car and just leave it to the ravages of a heron’s bowels should be professionally evaluated.)

I’ve never been a star-struck kind of person. I don’t understand the attraction to celebrity. As such, I’ve never been an autograph hound or amateur paparazzi. I hate those people and could never be one. But seeing a 2007 Phantom in person is a far cry from standing in line at Target behind Frankie Muniz, and there is no shame in gawking.

Standing beside it, I almost got chills. I was afraid to touch it, hell, afraid to even breathe on it. And this was AFTER Jonathon Livingston Seagull had already defiled it in such unspeakable ways. But all it took was a glance inside to put all my paranoia to rest.



Yep. A half million dollar car that you treat like a yard dog and you still can’t avoid the allure of the $2.99 Fish ‘n Chips Lunch Platter. En route to a multi-million dollar house in an exclusive beachfront community for an extended stay, and you have to pull into the drive-thru in DeFuniak Springs between a Ford Fusion and a Honda Del Sol. I mean, if nothing else, where the hell is your pride? Not to mention your regard for your cardiopulmonary system.

But to each his own, I guess. If I had the kind of jack this dude is pulling down, I’d probably not give a crap either.