The trip of a lifetime, yours for a billion five

The 86th edition of luxury retailer Neiman Marcus’ annual holiday catalog is not the be-all and end-all of gift giving this year.
Their priciest gift this year is a pair of $1 million “his and hers” timepieces from Van Cleef & Arpels. It’s possible they’ll throw in someone to actually read the time for you in those 1% moments when you’re contemplating creating some jobs in a small foreign country. If you’re merely among the ‘other’ 99% you can ‘shop down’ and get other less costly, yet ‘tasteful’ tokens of your love.
Neiman-Marcus includes a special edition McLaren 12C Spider in red for $354,000, a hen house inspired by France’s Versailles Palace for $100,000 and a walk-on role in Broadway’s “Annie: The Musical” for $30,000. Those are gifts that few of us can place on our credit cards.
There is, however, one gift that cannot be matched and almost cannot be bought unless you’re a small country looking for prestige. It’s a trip to the moon for you and that ‘special someone’ for a staggering 750 million dollars each!!! That’s right, for a billion and a half you and a date can go to the moon!
The firm, ‘Golden Spike’ will first rocket you to the orbiting space station and then on to your journey for two glorious days and how many ever lunar nights that might be to the surface of the moon.
When you get there “You’ll be on your own” says James Fleagle, head of lunar landings and shore excursions. “It’ll be a little like scuba diving at a small island in the Pacific. Just don’t take your helmet off. It’s not like there’s a Ritz Carleton on the side of a convenient crater.”
This will be the vacation of a lifetime, barring any catastrophes like a meteor strike to a fuel cell.
No long lines at restaurants and no traffic jams, just the 2 of you looking lovingly at each other in the moon-light and wondering if there’s enough oxygen for the heavy breathing.

You’ll want to arrive on the ‘full moon’ as there’s more to see once you get there. A crescent moon doesn’t have the extra space you may need for a secondary landing site. It’s a safety issue.