By Piper Bayard

Late in March, my daughter, DD, and I went to Kansas City and played one of our favorite games, the Money is No Object Game. That’s where we go to stores with $1ook items on the shelves and check out how the 1/10 of 1% lives.

We headed to Country Club Plaza, which is a gorgeous copy of Seville, Spain. Literally. J.C. Nichols, the developer, loved Seville and wanted it a bit closer than Spain.

Tiffany’s was the obvious starting point, but the guard at the door is was so serious and attentive that we were convinced we’d be talking with the police if we start taking pictures. We moved on to our favorite store, Hall’s.

Of course, we went to the Jewel Room first. This is DD in a $5k necklace made of cut crystal and gold. It’s a low end item.

The Bucellati pearls woven into 18k gold are a bit more substantial. To put it in perspective, these pieces represent a posh townhouse in Denver.

Who doesn’t need a 4′ alligator accent light for their summer pool party? Only $5.2k.

No reason to enhance the atmosphere with flowers if we’ve got the $6k for this vase.

And in case our $35k place settings need a little sprucing up, we can set out these gold and crystal turtle salt and pepper shakers. The glare in the picture is compliments of Swarovski. . . . Oops! No money left for food. *makes turtle soup*

After the pool party, we moved on to shoes. We were delighted to find that the 1/10 of 1% also has the perfect shoes for people abducted by aliens and returned with delusions of being Tijuana hookers. (And we thought it was just our local mall.)

But these shoes are Jimmy Choo and cost $785. Which makes me think they are actually designed for Colombian hookers to wear when playing Secret Service–Call of Booty.

After critiquing the high dollar dresses and debating whether $35 thank you notes actually convey more gratitude than $10 thank you notes, we split a truffle at the If You Have to Ask You Can’t Afford It brand chocolates counter. Then we exited this glorious tribute to luxury and found a rabbit on the Plaza that needed “bunny ears.”

Do you ever go to stores just to play? What fun stuff do you find?

All the best to all of you for not being blinded by the glitzy turtles.