School Tricks Parents Into Bidding $50,000 For Finger Painting Because Who Cares, They're Rich

A wealthy Manhattan couple is suing their son’s school for almost half a million dollars after the school allegedly rigged an auction and tricked them into bidding $50,000 for a finger painting. I’m not sure who’s more opportunistic here – the school or the parents.

The wealthy couple was helping out with a fundraiser for the kindergarten. Upper East Side socialite Michelle Heinemann and her investment banker husband Jon donated $6,000 worth of fancy clothes to an auction benefiting the Cathedral School of St John the Divine. Mrs. Heinemann, a “renowned artist” also worked with her son’s kindergarten class to make a piece of art her discriminating taste deemed as “sell-able.” The plan was to get some of the other rich parents at the school to start a bidding war that would ultimately end with the Heinemann’s placing the winning bid of $3,000.

When they weren’t able to attend the auction, the couple alleges the school’s director of advancement had a first-grade teacher named Ms. Bryant drive the bid up to “the outrageous sum of $50,000.” The couple tried to settle the matter without suing, but the school said, “Shut up. You’re rich. Just pay us.” I totally shouldn’t be using quotes here. They didn’t actually say that, it’s just my own interpretation of the events.

Since the actions of the school were so offensive, the parents obviously had to pull their children out of the school and it’s really expensive for rich people to do that:

The couple removed their son from the school and are suing for $415,000 plus damages – which includes $20,000 tuition to a new school, forfeited class fees for his little sister Hyacinth Cornelia and Hudson’s $60,000-a-year chauffeur, whose job they want to save.

Wait, what? They pay $60,000 a year to shuttle their kindergartners to school? I’d like to take a moment to mention that their children are named Hudson Cornelius and Hyacinth Cornelia. Discuss.

I should get paid to be a moderator for situations like this. I would solve this in less than a minute:

Hey school, these parents will be paying you the $3,000 you agreed on, even though they are wealthy enough to afford the $50,000, easy. Parents, you can’t have half a million dollars. That’s just stupid. You’re all being really greedy and kind of gross. Goodbye.

(photo: Maria Dryfhout/ Shutterstock)