I can’t believe it: All the money I invested in Dubai disappeared when its economy came crashing down faster than a golf club on Tiger Woods’ SUV. My $5 million house on the palm-tree-shaped island is now worth half that. My membership in the desert golf club; my days at the indoor ski mountain; walking on the beach that is cooled by refrigerated pipes underneath the sand; my nights in the world’s only seven-star hotel are gone. It’s as if they were a desert mirage.

Oh yeah, I didn’t have any of that stuff, but if I ever won the lottery...

For years, I never heard a bad thing about Dubai. It wasn’t until it did a leg-spinning Wile E. Coyote off the top of a financial cliff that we found out that things weren’t as advertised. All of a sudden, we find out that the world’s only seven-star hotel won’t let you wear shorts in the lobby, even when it’s 120 F in the air-conditioning. For $1,500 per night, I’ll wear whatever I please, thank you very much.

And who is in charge of giving a hotel stars: the hotel itself, or my first-grade teacher? I had to go through first grade three times to collect seven stars from her, so maybe they do deserve it.