The New Kitchen

Wealthy suburbs not only have rich Wasps and their servants, they also have Yuppies. The big question has been how to distinguish the Yuppies from the authentic rich Wasps. After all, they dress the same, with polo shirts, green slacks, and Docksider shoes. They drive BMWs, join the Yacht Club, and exhibit even greater levels of imperiousness than their betters on the big estates. So how can you tell? The answer is, the New Kitchen.

You can take the middle class out of the boy, but you can’t take the boy out of the kitchen. The giveaway clue to social status in suburbia is the eternal middle class quest for a new kitchen. No matter how you polish your English, part your hair, or perfect your preppiness, you cannot get away from the new kitchen syndrome.

Every middle class person aches deep in his or her bones for a new kitchen. God knows why, but this profound drive appears to be some kind of genetic endowment which cannot be eschewed with the advantages of money. Just as Tarzan had to take an occasional swing on a rope or vine after he came back to his noble estate in England, middle class people cannot refrain from planning a new kitchen the minute they move into their house in the suburbs.

Aristocrats have no such impulse. They are brought up to avoid the kitchen, except for occasional late night snacks. It does not occupy any place in their consciousness. They are not aware of the appliances or implements located therein, and feel no compulsion to update these items with gleaming new ones every few years. If the stove breaks, it gets fixed, and food is taken temporarily at some fancy French eatery. When they think of having their own island, they think of something with a dock and small beach off of Grand Cayman. To them, a cabinet is a group of people in Washington.

Middle class people, however, exhibit a fierce compulsion to redo even the most functional kitchen. They walk into a house where every appliance works, and no holes show through the linoleum, and grit their teeth in anguish. They will borrow, beg, and even embezzle to get the cash for a new kitchen. Why?

Dr. Argone Knoltz of Pace University has brilliantly analyzed the situation in his seminal paper for the Journal of International Sociology and House Remodeling. Dr. Knoltz states that the construction of new kitchens is a form of war. It arises out of the commonplace instinct found in all people to degrade, defeat, and utterly destroy their dearest friends and relatives. They do not build a new kitchen because there is anything wrong with the old one. They do it for that glorious moment when they can usher their best friends into the new room and watch as they try to smile approval while their guts turn inside.