Welcome to the Wednesday game we play at The Nest where you never know what I’ll end up regretting having to post about. It’s time for the next installment of Random Image Inspiration! Let’s go right to this week’s completely randomly selected numbers…
20, 49, 14, 39
The 20th post in my Reader was this one by Juliette.
The 49th word in that post is “will”
The 14th word in that post is “my”
Geez, we’ve practically formed the beginning of a question this time, haven’t we? Entering “will my” into Google Images yielded this as the 39th result…
Yeesh.
Taxes bring up a lot of unhappy thoughts. Let’s go for something a bit more lighthearted instead. Like the first person who pops into my mind when I think of taxes…
Oh yes, very lighthearted.
The woman above became a pop culture punching bag in the late 80’s for being one of America’s foremost bitches. Meet Leona Helmsley, aka The Queen of Mean. In an era where the glass ceiling was still very much in place for women, Helmsley not only smashed through it in the 1960’s… but did her best to outdo her male counterparts for the role of World’s Worst Boss. After being run out of the condo business by dissatisfied tenants with lawyers, she married hotelier Harry Helmsley in 1972 and brought the same assholish attitude that had made her a millionaire into the billionaire world of the “hospitality” industry. Don’t even think of taking those little soaps in the shower home…
And no complaining about the beds, either.
In the life of at least one American billionaire asshole, karma came back to bite them in the buns in the end… and The Queen of Mean’s downfall came about due to her own greed and extravagance. She ordered millions of dollars in renovations to an already perfectly lavish estate she and Harry had bought in Connecticut, then promptly irritated the contractors performing the work by refusing to pay the bills… then charging them as business expenses to the Helmsley hotel empire. Oops. Guess what the pissed of contractors did when they found out what was going on…
That’s very interesting, Mr. Deep Throat. But could we use a different code name for you when it comes to snitching on Leona Helmsley?
Once word got out about Mrs. Helmsley’s shady business practices, she had the book thrown at her by none other than US attorney Rudy Guiliani, who at that time was still working for the people. Among the litany of white collar crimes she and her hubby were charged with were a number of tax evasion charges. It was during the trial that her former housekeeper Elizabeth Baum claimed she heard Leona utter the quote that would forever be The Queen of Mean’s calling card…
If only Nick Nolte had thought to wear some makeup for his mugshot.
And so after many trials and appeals and other legal ways to waste a lot of time and little people’s tax money… Mrs. Helmsley was finally escorted off to jail four years later for a grand total of nineteen months. Upon being released in 1994, she spent much of the rest of her life as a recluse before finally checking out of Hotel Earth in 2007. Geez, what does a billionaire widow do with all of that money when she moves on to MUCH warmer climes?
That will buy a hell of a lot of those little Cesar dog food trays.
Yes, Leona Helmsley’s will set up a $12,000,000 trust for her Maltese anklebiter Trouble. She had also left instructions that the rest of her several billion dollar fortune be used to benefit our canine companions in general. Isn’t that sweet? Heck, that’s $12,000,000 more than two of her grandchildren got out of the inheritance. The courts eventually ruled that Trouble didn’t actually need that much jack, and should only receive $2,000,000 of the money her former owner stuffed under her mattress… which didn’t much matter anyway since Trouble only outlived Leona by three years. So much for that $8,000 yearly allowance for grooming…
Hey! It takes that much to keep me looking this fucking sexy!
And that closes the book on a brief look back at one of the more infamous and interesting human caricatures of recent history. It also slams the door on another overpriced edition of RII. See you all next Wednesday, little people…
Only the Little People pay taxes.
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
Yep – I’m one of those little peeps alright…..paying my fair share (so they say). I guess in the end, Leona paid hers…..I hear it’s quite WARM where she went and I’m not talkin’ Tahiti!
Pam
I’ll bet Leona is paying her taxes every single day. They’re probably being taken with a pitchfork, if you know what I mean…
I saw that ping-back on my blog and wow. HA HA HA HA. Of all of the posts to share. HA HA HA.
I’d totally forgotten about Leona and her little dog Rudy, um I mean Trouble. I couldn’t help myself there, had to make the joke.
LOL! I didn’t even realize how eye opening the pingback would be with that title! But hey, your wonderful poetry somehow inspired me to look up Leona Helmsley and share her heartwarming tale today. I either didn’t know or had long forgotten about her leaving the money to the dog. She hated the little people, but loved dogs. I guess everyone has some semblance of humanity in them…
Ah, Leona. I lived in Jersey during her reign of terror and remember it well….
That mugshot where she’s all dolled up and proudly smiling pretty much validates every nasty thing that’s been said about her. At least she didn’t get into politics…
Oh, but she’d be perfect in today’s climate!
I am constantly amazed at the things rich people think they can get… and sometimes DO get away with. I’m sure she had several friends waiting for her when she passed on. 😉
Oh I’ll bet she did. And maybe a few of those former employees she enjoyed humiliating and abusing… nah, they probably went to a different place than she did!
we are sadly one of the small ones… but I don’t know why.. it 5.64 really small?
You should see if there’s any money left in Leona’s doggy trust fund… or maybe one of the boys is a very distant relative of Trouble!
I’d forgotten all about Leona, but when I saw her name here the first thing I remembered was the trust for her dog. Like Crabby Appleton she was rotten to the core, but nowhere as interesting.
I can’t believe I had forgotten the dog trust, because the little people line is the main thing I remember her for. I guess dogs might have a different opinion of Leona than we little people do…
She’s lucky she didn’t get dropped off in the bad part of town. Only little people pay taxis, indeed.
No, wait, did you say “taxes”? I thought this post was about a mean rich woman who wouldn’t pay her taxi? Dammit.
Ah yes, I remember this story of the Queen of Mean and her little dog’s inheritance. Didn’t realize the case was prosecuted by Mayor Rudy who seems to have lost all his marbles in his golden years.