Show me the money

SINGAPORE - According to a recent Forbes super-mega-hyper-loony rich list, there are now an amazing 21 billionaires in Singapore.

It's amazing due to three reasons.

One, I have absolutely no idea where those happy folks park their, presumably, 22 giant cars per household on our teensy-weensy island.

Two, do they even need cars since they're such a higher life form they might simply teleport from place to place like people in Star Trek?

Three, why the heck am I not on that list?

Notwithstanding the fact that I wasn't smart enough to make a smart watch, own Samsung or find oil, gold, diamonds or an incredible talking dog downstairs in my HDB void deck.

I also didn't invent a start-up company which was gobbled up by Microsoft for billions, didn't paint the Mona Lisa or even a fake Mona Lisa, never won a lawsuit and never ever created a comic-book superhero which people would pay gazillions just to see him being played by Robert Downey Jr.

Anyway, notwithstanding all that, I think I deserve to be on that Filthy Rich List because I dream about untold filthy riches so much, even my dreams owe money to the loan shark.

But I am, of course, definitely on the Whiny B***h List which, as far as fortune-making goes, is worth - as any person who just missed winning Toto by a mere six numbers would tell you - this week's Toto toilet paper.

This, despite the fact that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

Yes, no kidding. It's true.

All the other kids had tongues and, man, even in those early infant days, my Medisave already needed topping up.

Sorry, that's an old joke but it's still pretty funny to me whenever I'm drinking cheap soup with my cheaper chopsticks.

Now, I was thinking just now while I was sadly breaking open my piggy bank to use my emergency funds of $1.28, how truly mystically and mythically important money really is.

Money isn't everything.

It's the only thing.

This is a hard divine truth I learnt from a fake monk in a kopitiam who begged me for alms to upgrade to an iPhone 5, failing which he threatened to commit six reincarnated suicides.

Firstly, money would put you into a swanky Forbes club where you're so rich, your maid has a maid who has a maid.

Secondly, it could put you into a secret honey club where you're so rich, your trophy mistress has actual trophies of being somebody else's trophy mistress previously.

Thirdly, it could get you into the very important health club where you're so rich, you stash the stand-by kidney, purchased heart and other essential replacement parts with receipts in your spare freezer.

You know, the way ordinary people put aside spare batteries in a shoebox.

That old saying which goes "health is wealth"? You kidding?

It's the other way round - "wealth is health".

Especially when 100 people are ahead of you in the queue to fix a toothache and one flash of the cash would magically transform you into No. 1.

I mean, money is so important that Real Madrid paid a king, emperor and dictator's ransom combined for galloping Gareth Bale in the hope that if they don't win the Champions League, at least they can nail the Triple Crown if they enter him as a racehorse.

Money is so important that if your car and your mum were caught in a flood in Commonwealth Drive, you'd give your car the lifeboat.

I know.

I live near Commonwealth Drive and I told my mother sorry, it'd be a different story if she came with a COE too.

Money is so important, I tell you, that Microsoft just bought the entire mobile phone business of Nokia, Finland's pride, for US$7.2 billion (S$9.2 billion).

Man, that was so devastating for the little people - basically the entire population of Finland - that they are left with, I don't know, only their reindeer poop clearing business left.

Money is so important that... wait a minute, I feel for the little people.

I feel for those poor finished Finnish folks.

I feel for those left-behind who aren't billionaires, millionaires, thousand-naires, ten dollar-naires or five cent-naires.

I feel for those millions of minions and billions of minionnaires.

I feel for me.

Well, I'm going to fight for the people and change everything.

You know that superhero I haven't created yet?

On this inspirational day, I declare that Robert Downey Jr will be playing my new champion of the masses, Ironed Out Man.

Boy, I'm so pumped up to spread the wealth around I'm like a guy with a cold eager to pass out free germs.

All I need now is a little peace and Zen-like quiet to contemplate what Ironed Out Man's costume will look like.

That monk with the iPhone on his mind must know a place.

Now, where the heck can I find him? I'm already feeling so wonderfully generous. I have $1.28 to give him.

Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.