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Poor and Loving It.
I wasn’t always poor. I had to work hard at it. I had to quit several jobs without finding new ones. I had to spend 75% of my paycheck at the bar when I knew my bills would have easily taken 90%. I had to max out credit cards and never pay on them. I had to give money to females that I knew would never pay it back. And most importantly I had to move to a small town where $6.00 and hour is considered ‘good money’.
I didn’t know that I was putting myself in line for poverty while I was doing all these things. I just woke up one day and realized that I couldn’t pay my car note because I only had 11 cents in the bank. And that’s when it hit me: I’m POOR! It took me 25 long years but I finally nose-dived below the poverty line. I was now in the same category as the homeless and welfare recipients. No more was I hindered by riches. I had shed that lifestyle. I got up and fixed myself a mayonaisse sandwich to celebrate. Delicious!
As a poor person I am entitled to certain privledges to which the well-to-do won’t every be privy. I decide haved to list a few:
- Instead of lugging around a wallet full of heavy dollar bills I now pay for important purchases like gasoline and food with spare change that I scavenge up around the
house.
- I get to shop at stores with improperly spelled titles like Sav-A-Lot, Thrif-Ti-Mart, and DisKount King. These stores offer a wide variety of out-dated, slightly damaged merchandise that Wal-Mart shoppers can only dream of.
- I get to drool at resturant commercials on TV because I know I will never be able to afford meals like that again unless a rich relative dies
- I get to wear my friend’s hand-me-down clothes and shoes. This means that I rarely match and my feet ache constantly from wearing shoes that are three sizes too small.
- I get to freely engage in the offical sports of the National Poor People’s Association: begging and borrowing.
- I get to go to bed every night with the comforting thought that if I ever do meet Ms.Right I can’t afford to date her.
I’ll stop there because I see the envy rising to dangerous levels in a few reader’s eyes. These readers probably have steady jobs and nice homes or apartments. Their bills are probably caught up. They probably have an immense wardrobe with properly sized shoes. Their bank account probably never drops below $5,000. I apologize to these readers if my boasting about my impoverished condition has made them feel inferior and totally removed any self-esteem they may have had left. All I can say is that I never meant to be poor. I was just in the right places at the right times. Maybe one day all of you will find yourselves on the Road to Rags as well. Until then you can check in with me if you want to know what it’s like. I’ll be the guy on the side of the interstate off-ramp with the ‘Will Work For Food’ sign. Pull your Mercedes right up and ask me anything. I promise I won’t laugh.
Another Party Store
I walked into our neighborhood establishment and strolled through the isles. My bar was already stocked sufficiently, so alcohol was not on the list for this trip. Today’s trip was for nothing but party supplies.
I greeted the man behind the counter with a smile. “Hello” to him must mean,”please tell me every insignificant detail of yourself” as he proceeded to tell me about his day up to that point. Thanks. I care. This man was nothing but a distraction in my procurement of party supplies. I strolled through the isles, acknowledged the offer to help me find anything. I knew what I was looking for, I don’t want Mr. Annoying’s help. The store isn’t that big, and I think I can find the party supplies I was looking for.
A little time passed, and I continued my search for party supplies. Up and down every isle i looked for things that were necessary for a party (hence the name party supplies.) After thorough examination of the store three times over, I came to a startling conclusion. My idea of party supplies may be a little different than theirs. Here are the “party supplies” i found at the store.
Ice. Yup, ice is needed for parties. Afterall, its what keeps the beverages cold. A great party supply indeed. Unfortunately, this was the only thing we agreed on.
Porn. Racks and racks of all varieties of porn magazines lined one whole wall. I know some party people will tell you that a party isn’t a party without the latest issue of Greasy Babes. I tend to disagree. In my experience, nothing breaks up a party like that one crazy guy with his pants down screamin, “wooooo, I got the latest issue of Swank…its PARTY TIME!!!”
Lighters. Again, not my idea of a party supply. I gave up the lets burn things party a long time ago and I have think most normal adults have too. But what I seem to be learning here is that most normal adults are not buying their party supplies from a liquor store.
Beef Jerky. Okay, I don’t think I have to really expand on this. Anyone that EVER brings beef jerky to a party should be lit on fire with the lighter they most likely bought as well. If you must make a reference to beef jerky being the ultimate compliment to porn, you may do so. I’m not touching that one.
That’s it. That was all I could find that would even come close to being party supplies, no little parasols for drinks, not even a SOLO cup to be found.
Needless to say, I was a little disappointed, educated and a little weirded out at the same time. I like to think of it as the trifecta of human experience.
Oil Exploration Update: U.S. To Play Catch-Up With Cuba
Startlingly enough, it looks as if the time will soon arrive when the USA will have to play catch-up with Cuba in oil exploration. The diminutive and destitute communist enclave that serves as Fidel Castro`s personal cigar plantation now realizes that it has enough oil reserves under its coastal waters to prop up its no-go economy for decades and, incapable of assembling the capacity to out the oil itself, the island nation has begun to license drilling rights to other countries, including China, the prospect of which alarms us, and Spain, the idea of which invites us to think of tapas.
In wisdom wrought from its neediness, the resourceful islet has also offered to license American oil companies.
Expectedly enough, the very prospect of Cuba scooping oil out of the ocean floor while America has outlawed it for decades has enkindled hot debate in Congress about the present wisdom of our self-imposed interdiction. The debate has rapidly blossomed into a gusher partly because America has even more proven oil reserves in its coastal waters, no doubt principally because it has even more coastal waters.
Persuasively enough in these oil-dear times, there seems to be enough of the black gold there to meet all of our energy needs for about 18 years, or long enough for all the leaders in the Middle East who we aren`t getting along with these days to go the way of leaders everywhere who, we determine, are irredeemably misguided.
Naturally, conservation societies have been galvanized into opposition by the mere prospect of an oil bit chomping into the emerald waters of our abundantly fishy coastlines in search of the liquid treasure below the reefs.
As the debate bubbles on, we can only consider a worst-case, best-case scenario. Worst case: we do nothing while foreign companies who don`t exactly have the most reverential reputations in ecological propriety drill away and, as time allows, send oil spills slithering onto our beaches. Best case: we race to catch up with Cuba and maybe even preempt the ill-advised entanglements that might otherwise drill down into our hemisphere.
Since we`re actually talking about drilling in our own backyard pond, we might also, one hopes, do it in ways that are less likely to lead to the shameful oil blights that fill us all with remorse and send fish and fowl off to tarry death
Freedom`s Walk. Narrower But Better Than Seeing It Blown Up
Why have the guardrails encroached with such uncomfortable persistence? Primarily, but not exclusively, because of the new privileges the government has assumed in order to conduct the ever-looming war on terror.
But there are a host of other incursions, such as electronic surveillance via such things as the information that goes into our credit reports and the overly numerous troopers raising money for municipalities by passing out tickets so frequently they make every driver a paranoid wreck.
But just when you feel that you ought to get as feisty as the ACLU about even the slightest encroachment on our precious freedoms, you read about the FBI stopping the al-Qaeda plan to blow up the PATH tunnel between Manhattan and Hoboken and that the information that tipped the Feds off was gleaned from surveillance of email messages.
Then, unless you like the idea of you and your fellow Americans getting blown to smithereens, you have to make peace with the encroachments as, contradictorily enough, necessary protections of freedom. After all, when people who believe in Freedom`s Walk get blown up, their part of the treasured path goes up in flames with them.
And we do get nagging reminders that a world of misguided hustlers of hatred are doing their best to blow up as many of us as they can.
So you finally have to sit back and say, hey, what if Freedom Road was wide open but the terrorists were swarming all over it with their deadly dumb bombing plans?
The consideration gives you pause and, comfy with the accommodation or not, you have to vote for a narrower but safer way along Freedom`s Walk.
And the closer you live and work in the highly targeted Manhatties, the more likely you are to stand tall for the inwardly mobile guardrails.
Cell Phones and the Dentist
Anyway, today while I was chatting on the phone and driving to the dentist, I got a tiny bit distracted and turned onto the wrong road
8 Reasons Why You Should Email Me One Dollar
Being the cynics that you are, I know you’re probably asking: “Why should I send you $1.00? I barely even know you. If I hadn’t somehow stumbled onto this article I wouldn’t even have known that you exist. I still don’t know how I came across this ridiculous article, I was trying to find my brother-in-law’s blog.”
Since I know that humanoids are by nature untrusting, and I know that you can spare the dollar, I will now generously provide 8 reasons why you should immediately paypal me a buck. I don’t think I’ll need more than 5 reasons but I like to give people their money’s worth. Plus I have a word count to think about. So without further ado:
(1) Sending me $1.00 will keep you from spending it on something pointless like the mortgage payment. You’ve been faithfully paying on that mortgage for years-it’s time you had a break. And it’ll only cost you a single greenback.
(2) Donating to a worthy cause can give you peace of mind which, in turn, will help you to sleep better at night. Giving me a dollar may not be as worthy a cause as, say, giving to the Red Cross, but I promise I will sleep better tonight and many nights thereafter if you send me that dollar.
(3) If I were sitting in front of a gas station smelling of cheap wine and wearing the same clothes I had on when I lost my job 8 months ago, you wouldn’t even consider giving me a dollar. You would probably tell me to: “Get a Job, ya bum”, and then rapidly walk away, clutching your wallet tightly. I, however, am not sitting in front of a gas station, I’m sitting in front of my television. And I changed clothes 2 days ago.
(4) I need to buy some Bling Bling! You’re just not in the game if you don’t have diamonds in your ears and ice on your neck and wrists. Plus I know a guy who’ll give me a great deal on some gold teeth. But I need more cheese.
(5) Many great artist in history have depended on donations to finance their masterpieces. Your sending me $1.00 will allow me to do the necessary research for a masterpiece of an article that I’m working on called: ‘Going Out on Saturday Night and Getting Sloppy Drunk Using Other People’s Money’. I’ll be sure to acknowledge you at the end.
(6) Fellas, would you rather send me a dollar or have your wife spent it on yet another pair of black heels? Ladies, would you rather your husbands spend it on another one of those magazines that he keeps in that box in his workshop? I thought not.
(7) Time is money. You’re already wasting money by taking time to read this article. Another George Washington won’t kill you.
(8) The pens and paper I use to write these articles don’t pay for themselves. My high speed internect connection that I use to upload these articles isn’t free. I don’t think $1.00 is too much to ask after the scores of articles I have written and shared with all of cyberspace. After all, if it wasn’t for my articles you wouldn’t appreciate the good articles written by others.
So there you have it folks. 8 reasons to send me $1.00 via Paypal. As I suspected most of you were sold after Reason #5. I appreciate you waiting patiently until I finished with the remaining Reasons before rushing over to Paypal.com. Now that I have finished listing my reasons feel free to login and send your $1.00 to danolund@prodigy.net. And please hurry, the guy with the gold teeth isn’t going to have those great deals forever…