Why would you need 28 top-of-the-line vehicles for one family? It may be over-the-top for you, but since there are 30 or 31 days every month, you could say that stopping at 28 cars does sound like a virtue.

You could call it a weakness for collecting, the way some people collect vintage cars, old maps and books.

Or you could call it conspicuous consumption, so many syllables to pronounce without your listener being incited to covet and/or be jealous of a neighbor’s goods. Those two words, paired together, do sound like an invention of modern man, not of his innocent ancestors who collected food for consumption, not for collecting.

If you had 28 cars, how many drivers would you need? How many garages? How many extra hands to clean them, spot the nicks and dents, look after the tires, battery, water, oil, etc.?

Which is one way of saying, “Aren’t you sounding like you merely envy the lady who owns 28 luxury cars?” What I’d like to do — if I owned 28 cars — would be to take all 28 of them out for a spin — at the same time, on the same street — and see what happens! There is no law against owning more than one car, but what if I stop traffic? Will I be arrested for causing a jam?

There being no law against conspicuous consumption, I’d be in the clear, or so I think.

Which reminds me of a beautiful lady who broke every rule about conspicuous consumption, that is, wearing jewelry conspicuously — when she was herself a jeweler. For one, she wore diamonds in the daytime whenever she felt like it, even when her friends — and clients — stuck to the rule that diamonds were for evening. She had such elan, such elegance, such personality that she could get away with breaking every rule! with diamonds and rubies and emeralds and what-not.

Recently, we former classmates held a reunion. As usual, the one who knows the four C’s where diamonds are concerned arrived wearing a pair of beautiful earrings which to me looked like diamonds, rectangularly shaped, emerald cut. “No,” she said proudly, “they just look like diamonds, but they’re not.”

A guessing game followed. “Give up?” she asked. “Green topaz.”

Whatever.