ya’ll know by now (i guess) that i’m pretty much one of those “bleeding heart liberal” types. most of the time. but there’s one area where i reckon i lack much empathy, and i’ve pissed people off by talking about it before, but you must know that’s not going to stop me…
i was reading a story today about a woman who was complaining that her family of three (herself, her husband, and her teenage daughter) couldn’t get by on the $70,000 her husband makes (while living in a rural area). that’s nearly twice what sohei makes, and we live in a rather expensive county, so i was already a little incredulous. i’m more than willing to accept that people have problems. i know that most americans are a hospital visit away from abject poverty. but when she complained about not having enough money to buy meds because of having to make two car payments (!) she kind of lost me. and when a couple of people had the gall to suggest the family sell one of the cars, a lot of people jumped in saying how it’s impossible for a family to get by with one car.
huh.
well, until i was a teenager, my family had one car. and we didn’t buy our first new car until i was 12. most of the time, mum would drive dad to work, especially when she knew she’d need the car that day. to live in affordable housing in a relatively safe area, we often lived kind of far from where his office was, so it wasn’t just a 15 minute trip. and before dad had the luxury of borrowing a government car for his frequent out of town trips, sometimes we’d be left completely car-less for days at a time. and, once i left home, one of the reasons i never felt a pressing need to get my license (aside from phobic terror) was that i knew it would be a long time before we could afford a car for me, and spending two hours a day driving sohei to and from work didn’t really appeal to me. (as if he’d have let me drive his car, anyway.) i didn’t begin learning to drive until mum died and left me her car – the new one we bought when i was 12. so if i didn’t have the “fortune” of losing my mother, i still wouldn’t have my license, and i probably would’ve had to quit my job once they cut my hours and moved me to evening shift. so, yeah, i tend to believe that one car per family isn’t unthinkable. a pain in the ass, yes. impossible, no.
so why doesn’t she get a job to help pay for the house and cars? she’s got asthma and is depressed. okay, i totally feel for people that can’t work because they’re sick or disabled. but i’ve also come to learn that, if you really need money, there is probably a desk job waiting for you somewhere, where you don’t have to do anything more physical than putting new paper in the printer or typing or answering phones. (tmi coming up, so if you don’t want to hear about it, skip to the next paragraph.) i am chronically sick. i have ibs. this means i have days where i spend a lot of time in the bathroom. i have days where my guts cramp so badly that i am either in bed in the fetal position or the bathroom the entire day. flare-ups suck, and you never know when one is coming. thankfully, i found cheapish meds that do the job most of the time, when i can get them. sometimes they don’t, but if i want to keep my job, i have to go into work regardless, mentally chanting the mantra, “cheeks, don’t fail me now.” (thanks, cheech.) my aunt has it even worse than i do – a lot worse – and she’s managed to keep a full time job for about three decades now. i’ve had a couple of friends and a colleague with the same problem, and they all managed to work, too. it’s not life-threatening like asthma can be, but it can be pretty painful and, sometimes, embarrassing.
on top of that, i’m agoraphobic. i do not particularly like leaving the house most of the time. it’s even worse if i know i have to drive somewhere. sometimes it makes me physically sick with worry. i breathe a sigh of relief every time i make it home in one piece. i spend most of my time at work – like at school – looking at the clock and counting down the minutes til i can go back to where it’s safe and i don’t have to talk to anyone. (and a lot of the time, work is a more pleasant environment than home, to be honest.) when i’m not in my house, i generally feel unsettled, and it gets worse when i have to interract with people. since being switched to evening hours, now i’m not only anxious but also depressed. i don’t know why. i guess it sucks that i’m not getting as big a paycheck now that my hours have been cut. it’s probably a lot of things. but my point is, it’s not easy for me to work. i mean, i know it’s not fun for anybody, but i’ve had days where it’s been bloody awful. but i know i have to do this, so i suck it up and do it. just like my aunt, and like my mum, who was also agoraphobic and had social anxiety problems.
i guess the reason this stuff always kind of annoys me is that, eventually, it comes out that the person made some kind of mistake in their youth, like maxing out their credit cards or something. (it did in this case as well, as she admitted to making some poor financial decisions before.) being in financial trouble because of something like being sick, or having a deadbeat ex, or because someone else took your credit cards and maxed them out, is something that i can empathise with. but after spending my entire life having to make do with home-made clothes and hand-me-downs, soup or pancakes or mac and cheese for dinner, beater cars, no lessons or extracurriculars, and just plain doing without, excuse me if i don’t break down in tears because you can’t afford your exurban house and two cars because you blew your money on something stupid and ruined your credit. yeah, sohei and i have very good credit, and you know why?
we make most of our payments on time. we can do this because we never went crazy and bought something we couldn’t afford, no matter how badly we wanted it. we can pay our bills because we don’t go out; we don’t go to clubs or movies, and about the only time we go out to eat, it’s off the mcdonald’s 99 cent menu when i come home too tired to cook. aside from the couple of t-shirts we just bought (not the $40 a&f variety, btw) we haven’t bought any new clothes in over a year. in fact, i don’t think i’ve bought a new pair of jeans in well over two years. i guess i’m lucky, considering the current economic climate in this country, that i learned from a young age to be happy with very little. all i really need, materially, to feel content and thrive is a decent place to live and a working computer with internet connection. and i don’t really need the computer, i guess, but i tend to feel kind of isolated without it.
the point is, i get aggravated when people like my family, and like sohei and myself, scrimp and save and go without, and take jobs we don’t like, and work hard, only to be considered some kind of suckers or jerks because we can pay our bills. i do feel sympathy for people that fall on hard times, but if you spent your summer buying cars and plasma tvs, i’m afraid you’re on your own when winter comes. i guess you’re lucky that some people manage to feel sorry for you, and give you money which you then go out and blow on something else you don’t need or another party, but i don’t believe in throwing my money away on lost causes. i may need it myself for the next $1000 medical bill i wrack up. and you can be sure that we’ll be paying back every cent, like last time, even if it means living on ramen and macaroni again, while i gain yet more weight from only being able to afford to eat junk.
