There’s a new park off Scott Street in San Francisco. The park is high up in the hills and overlooks the city, revealing a dazzling horizon of buildings wreathed in fog. 

I’m sure that it’s completely legal to be poor and still take your kids to this park, but for whatever reason the poor just don’t bother.  Whenever I take my niece there for some playtime, the scene is always the same: all of the parents glow with carefully created tans.  Many of them have marathon and triathlon T-shirts. No one wears sunglasses or jeans that are less than $200.  The kids have expensive, complicated toys that grind up sand and spit it out; sometimes the toys make whistles and siren noises for no particular reason.

As I follow my niece around from swings to slides to sandbox, I hear snatches of conversation:

“I was in advertising but I wanted to keep my own hours so I started my own business.”

“Sure, the downturn has swallowed up a few million in equity but we still think we can sell.”

“The nanny wasn’t working out and now we’re not sure about the cook.”

These people are in no way unpleasant.  When my niece approaches the merry-go-round, a nearby father will immediately shoot his hand out and stop it, allowing her to get on and join his sons while they spin around and around.  When she makes a move that indicates she’s had enough, the spinning immediately stops and she’s able to disembark.

Still, I’m the guy who works for the Man five days a week.  I’m the guy who barely holds up a mortgage on a small place outside the city.  I’m the guy who fumbles with a routine diaper change while well-groomed mothers look on disapprovingly (it’s Uncle technique, ladies, get used to it).  I’m the guy who thinks how very, very strange it is to be this old and still feel out of place on the playground.