6 Absolutely Insane Perks Of Being Ultra-Rich

6

They Buy Cars Out Of A Giant Vending Machine

If you're ever standing in front of either a vending machine or a car dealership, you're probably not having a great day. One of them is a shiny glass cage filled with empty promises and regret, and the other gets your Snickers bar stuck against the window. But if you're wealthy enough (and also you live in Singapore), combining these two things makes for a fun experience. Behold:

Autobahn Motors

That's the home of Autobahn Motors in Singapore, where you can stand in a building across the street and pick a luxury car from a hollowed-out complex. The process of buying a two-ton automobile from a skyscraper-sized vending machine is fairly simple: You take a closer look at the cars on a tablet computer and punch in which ones you want to order, because let's face it, nobody gets just one thing out of a vending machine. The car then pops out of its slot and gets delivered down to you through an automated "fishbone" delivery system. Couldn't be easier, if you're the type of person that puts as much thought into buying a car as the rest of us do in getting an afternoon snack.

The guy behind this idea, Gary Hong, needed a way to both stand out from other luxury car dealers (because those are all the same, apparently) and make use of limited land offerings in Singapore. So rather than spend a lot of money on a flashy showroom, Autobahn Motors instead went with buying an apartment block and punched out its sides. All this so that when one rich guy asks another rich guy where he got his fancy car, he can casually say, "Oh, you know, a vending machine in Singapore."

5

They Market Their Houses Like They're Porn

When most people try to increase the value of their homes, they build a pool or install hardwood floors. Not the owner of Opus, "Beverly Hills' most expensive property," who tried to entice buyers with the finest luxuries known to man: tits and ass. In order to sell the $100 million mansion, they let film producer turned realtor Nile Niami shoot a sexy movie trailer for it. If you ever wondered what one-percenter niche porn would be like, look no further.

4

They Smoke Never-Touched Weed Out Of A Work Of Art

Doesn't it suck that you have to touch your weed? Takes away from the purity, brah. Hmm? That's never been a concern to you? Well, then you must not be the kind of real marijuana aficionado willing to cough up a hundred bucks for an eighth of an ounce. Allow us to introduce you to canned cannabis. Canned-a-bis. Can o' bis. Whatever. This stuff:

L.A. Island inc.

3

They Set Up Trust Funds ... For Their Pets

Even the richest among us can't cheat death (yet). And seeing as how it's no longer socially acceptable to be buried with your treasures like a pharaoh or a pirate, they'll have to leave their stuff to their loved ones. No, not their asshole spoiled kids. Fifi and Mr. Snuggles.

It is now legal for the wealthy to set up trust funds for their pets. In case of their owner's death, this is to assure the pets are taken care of for the duration of their lives and don't end up in a shelter, but it is also literally the plot of The Aristocats. A carer is appointed to guarantee that these animals live better lives than they themselves ever will. And they can lead long lives. One deceased moneybags left $200,000 for the care of two African birds that can live up to 90 years. Imagine being left an animal you have to take care of until your dying day. And you can't kill it, because it pays your rent.

Unsurprisingly, leaving vast fortunes to animals has already caused a lot of tension and some really weird problems. Leona Helmsley tried to leave $12 million to her dog, only for a court to effectively tell her posthumously that she was being senile and knock that number down to "only" $2 million. The remaining money was given to charity. Fortunately, courts officially have the power to reduce the amount in pet trust funds (which are already sort of skirting the law as it is) if they're deemed "unreasonably large," like 12 fucking million dollars. Not like $2 million, which is basically chump change for a Maltese purebred.

2

They Can Watch Newly Released Movies At Home

Even going to the movie theater is a little bit of a luxury for some people. Lots of us will wait until a movie comes out on a streaming service, or it falls out of the back of a passing pirate website. But some people have the opposite problem: They're too rich to go to a movie theater. Conveniently, they make the movie theater come to them.

Enter Prima Cinema. Prima isn't video on demand; it's box office on demand, allowing you to watch brand-new, still-playing-in-theaters movies in the privacy of your home. You, or at least that one rich dude you know, can have the massive Prima box installed in your home for a cool $35,000. Discerning readers will note that this is roughly 3,500 months' worth of Netflix subscriptions (or 7,000 if you're "sharing" with your parents), but that's a mere pittance for someone who wants to enjoy the new Transformers with a jar of caviar.

There are a few catches, though. Because they had to cut a deal with major movie studios to get them to allow this in the first place (and let's be honest, to "keep out the undesirables"), there are some very strict requirements to even get Prima installed. You must own a home theater with no more than 25 seats, and said theater must have a screen reaching 100 inches or more at the diagonal. Your internet must also be super high speed, so even millionaires who happen to live in Farmville, USA will get left out.

Finally, on top of that $35,000 installation fee, each movie costs $500 to stream. Each purchase must also be approved with a fingerprint scan, not only to discourage movie buff burglars, but also to keep your child from accidentally pressing a bunch of buttons and racking up millions of dollars of debt in bad Mark Wahlberg movies.

1

They Can Pay For A Better Room In Prison

The whole point of prison, depending on whether you're talking to an American or a Norwegian, is to ensure that a criminal knows they fucked up somehow. It's a punishment, a way to show how terrible life can be if you break the law. And if you're a millionaire, that horrible punishment is to live in what looks like our first studio apartment.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

That's not a prison cell. That's summer camp. It's part of a Californian program "pay-to-stay," wherein typically nonviolent offenders (if you think drunk driving is a nonviolent offense, which we don't) can pay roughly the price of a three-star hotel in Indiana each night to serve their time. A 21-day drunk driving sentence cost the woman in that photo $82 a night, which totals up to a little over $1,700 -- a steal for circumventing justice. At the moment, about 20 different California city jails are offering this "upgrade." That's right, these aren't special holding facilities, but a VIP section carved out of regular jail and paid with taxpayer dollars so that rich offenders don't have sit too close to the commoners. Finally, jail time is like airplane travel, only with fewer human rights violations.