by Carlos Bukowski

My friend Marcus is the kind of rich that makes you tired just thinking about it. Trust fund money, the kind where his biggest decision on any given Tuesday is whether to take the Porsche or the Tesla to his therapist. He’s not a bad guy, just… vacant. Like someone hollowed out the inside of a Ken doll and filled it with cryptocurrency and daddy issues.

So when he shows up at my door last month with a bottle of Blanton’s Gold Edition, I should have known it was going to cost me more than whatever he paid for it.

“Happy birthday, man!” he says, thrusting this gorgeous amber bottle at me like it’s a peace offering to the gods of working-class resentment.

My birthday was three months ago.

“Marcus,” I tell him, “this bottle costs more than my rent.”

“Marcus,” I tell him, “this bottle costs more than my rent.”

“Exactly!” He grins like he’s just solved world hunger. “You always drink that cheap shit. Time to upgrade your palate.”

See, that’s the thing about rich idiots – they think expensive automatically means better, and better automatically means what you need. Like the universe is just waiting for them to throw money at problems that don’t actually exist.

But it was beautiful, I’ll give him that. Single barrel, hand-bottled, each one supposedly unique. The kind of bourbon that whiskey nerds write poetry about and collectors mortgage their houses to obtain. The kind that sits behind glass cases in liquor stores with little signs that say “Please Ask for Assistance” because they know damn well that if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.

I should have put it on the shelf. Should have saved it for a special occasion. Should have done what sensible people do with gifts that cost more than their car.

Instead, I opened it that night.

Not because I was celebrating anything. Not because I was having a particularly good day. I opened it because Angela was supposed to come over. Angela, who’d been giving me another chance after I’d fucked up the first three chances she’d given me. Angela, who worked double shifts at the diner and studied nursing on her days off and somehow still found time to believe that I might be worth something.

She was bringing dinner. Homemade lasagna, the kind that takes all day to make right. The kind you make for someone when you’re trying to say something important without having to use words.

So I thought, hell, if she’s making an effort, maybe I should too. Maybe we’ll crack open this fancy bourbon and have one of those nights you remember when you’re old and everything else has turned to shit.

Angela never made it over.

Car trouble turned into a tow truck turned into a mechanic telling her she needed eight hundred dollars in repairs she didn’t have. She called crying, apologizing, asking if we could do it another night.

And there I was, sitting alone in my apartment with a pan of lasagna that was never coming and a $400 bottle of bourbon that suddenly felt like a monument to my own stupidity.

I drank half the bottle that night. Not because it tasted good – though it did, smooth as silk and complex as a jazz solo. I drank it because I was angry. Angry at Marcus for giving me something I couldn’t appreciate. Angry at Angela’s car for breaking down. Angry at myself for thinking expensive bourbon could somehow make me into the kind of man who deserved homemade lasagna.

But mostly, I drank it because I could. Because unlike Angela’s time, unlike her effort, unlike the care she put into planning that evening, the bourbon was just sitting there, available. Easy.

The next morning, I woke up with a hangover that felt like it cost $200 and the realization that I’d just pissed away more money in one night than Angela made in a week.

When I told Marcus what happened, he just shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it, man. I’ll get you another one.”

And that’s when it hit me. The lesson wasn’t about the bourbon. It was about value itself.

See, Marcus could replace that bottle without thinking about it. To him, it was just money, and money was just numbers on a screen that magically replenished themselves. But Angela’s lasagna? The time she took to call me even when her world was falling apart? The fact that she’d rearranged her whole day around the idea of making me happy?

You can’t buy that. You can’t replace it. You can’t waltz into a store and say, “I’ll take another Tuesday evening with someone who gives a damn.”

Rich idiots like Marcus think the most expensive thing in any room is whatever they bought. But the most valuable thing in that room that night wasn’t the Blanton’s Gold Edition bourbon.

It was the woman who wasn’t there, and the dinner that never happened, and the chance I might have blown by confusing price with worth.

Angela and I are still together. She got her car fixed, eventually. I learned to appreciate the cheap bourbon again – turns out it tastes just fine when you’re drinking it with the right person.

And Marcus? He’s still rich. Still buying expensive shit for people who don’t need it, still thinking money can substitute for understanding.

As for that remaining half bottle of Blanton’s? It’s still sitting on my shelf, unopened. Not because I’m saving it for a special occasion, but because I’m saving it for the right one.

The next time Angela makes lasagna and her car doesn’t break down and we have one of those perfect, ordinary evenings that money can’t buy.

That’s when I’ll know what it’s actually worth.

Carlos Bukowski writes about bourbon, bad decisions, and the difference between price and value from his apartment in Hollywood. He still drinks cheap whiskey most nights, and has never been happier about it.