Being Poor - a wrenching piece that details what it truly means

[ehrnst]

Beyond the rhetoric of the "lazy, bon-bon eating, unemployment-collecting, living the life of riley on $300 a week, no ambition, sitting around all day watching soaps and happy about it," campaign to justify cutting food stamps, heat and medical care for families, there is the very personal reality. I have lived some of this, after having gotten a graduate degree. I found this on DU post a few years ago an sobbed.

Now I'm on facebook, and it's making my friends think, cry and repost.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

<snip>
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they’re what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there’s not an $800 car in America that’s worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends’ houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won’t hear you say “I get free lunch” when you get to the cashier.
</snip>

[OneGrassRoot]

1. Thank you so much. Sharing as well. K&R n/t

[slackmaster]

2. The author has no clue what it's like to live in real poverty

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Anyone who owns a TV is not truly poor.

My dad grew up in real poverty. Being truly poor means your mom hands you a rifle and three rounds of .22 ammunition, and tells you not to come home until you have two jackrabbits. He usually came home with three jackrabbits.

He understood what poverty was all about. He never felt sorry for himself, and did something bold to get out of his situation. He had real courage.

Unrec for pathetic whining.

[ehrnst]

3. Why stop there? I mean even if they got it off freecycle, that means they had access to a COMPUTER!

And even if it was at the public library, what the hell were they doing there instead of lining up where the day laborers line up?

Damn whining moochers! If I don't think they've suffered enough, then they need to suffer more.

Am I Right??

[slackmaster]

8. My dad enlisted in the Navy at age 15

In 1934.

[sudopod]

25. My dad enlisted in the Marines at 12

He had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before he went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down at the mill, and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when he got home, our granddad and our grandmother would kill him and dance about on his grave singing Hallelujah.

[slackmaster]

27. My dad and his siblings had to walk six miles in the rain to school every day, except when it was...

...snowing, and it was uphill both ways.

[JVS]

31. yup

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDaSvRO9xA

[redwitch]

35. You da man!

:hug:

[Bunny]

68. Hahaha!

:thumbsup:

[ehrnst]

53. So there's the solution - enlist the kids. Make the lazy brats contribute!! (nt)

[eShirl]

5. what if it's an old black & white TV they got for $5 from the Salvation Army store?

like mine

[CrownPrinceBandar]

6. Or the hand-me-down they got from relatives........

The TV I have for watching movies (no cable or sat) was given to me and cost me nothing.

[slackmaster]

7. Even the most lowly TV is useless if you don't have electricity

;-)

[Carni]

11. OMG Too much!

Why don't we just bring back poor houses?

[Dragonfli]

22. Because we pretend the homeless and poor don't exist silly, else it would be a bi-partisan plan

[Javaman]

12. welcome to ignore. nt

[Carni]

13. I'm waiting for the walked 20 miles barefoot...

Through snow to sell apples (or whatever) stories lol

[Javaman]

16. Up hill both ways. LOL

while having to carry both his sister and brother on his back. LOL

[Carni]

48. Then probably across a raging river

At the double hills bottom -- probably had to hand whittle a canoe out of a tree and then load sis and brother inside lol

[bobbolink]

70. alerting would be a good idea, Thhis is sheer hate speech, belonging on FR.

[Lifelong Protester]

96. Hey!! You're back! All right!

and I agree on the hate speech thing, I mean for cripes sake.

[Luminous Animal]

98. That's what we had now and again. I didn't know that most of the Wizard of Oz was in color

until I was 21 years old.

[Carni]

9. Oh please you can get CRT tube type TVs all day long for free

Landfills are FULL of them--freecycle is full of them. I had one and it took me four months to GIVE THE THING AWAY.

If the poster had said "your kids want everything they see on your plasma TV" your comment might make a modicum of sense. It doesn't say that.

[slackmaster]

30. But there are no more broadcast stations in most of the country any more

So if you don't have cable, a TV is useless.

[Dragonfli]

32. that's funny, I do it with a converter and digital antenna. I must be special

[GoCubsGo]

38. I'm doubly special.

I do it on two different CRT sets. One of them is 20 years old.

[Carni]

43. Depends on where you live

In most areas you can still pick up a couple of stations.

[ehrnst]

54. Not in 2005 when the piece was written. Also - do they need without

lights, heat or a car be considered worth helping?

Or do they need just need to be worse off than your grandparents?

[BuelahWitch]

74. The Gov't gave away vouchers for digital converters

Our local cable company gave away digital boxes right before the switch (and I think that people on assistance can get basic local stations for free).

[JVS]

10. Oh! Owning a rifle! I see we have a fancy lad!

[wickerwoman]

56. LOL

:toast:

[PVnRT]

58. AND ammunition!

[Arugula Latte]

63. Yeah, what's wrong with pouncing on squirrels and biting their heads off?

[JVS]

64. When I was a kid we were so weary from starvation that we sat by the road and waited for a car to...

hit an animal.

[madmom]

15. Where'd they get the money for the ammo? You can't get that at Goodwill. Just because it

isn't your definition of being poor, doesn't mean they aren't poor.:eyes:

[DearAbby]

17. I wished I could un-rec this post for having no empathy

[slackmaster]

28. I and my family have tremendous empathy for poor people, but no tolerance for "poor-mouthing".

If you're poor, you can either accept it with dignity and grace or do something about it.

[Dragonfli]

33. Just shut up and die or rob a store , is that what you propose?

[slackmaster]

36. Invent something, get a job, go to school, or join the military

Anything but whining.

[Dragonfli]

40. I don't know, my lymphoma and age preclude getting a Job (can't pass a physical)

at nearly fifty I do not know about school and of course your not really poor if you can afford schooling.
The military won't take me, so I guess I can get a job for you wiping your ass or something.
You really have no clue do you?

That is why the party is turning into what it is, too many people like you walking around pretending to be Democrats, hell most of you get elected as such.

[ehrnst]

41. You're right - recessions are caused by widespread, spontaneous outbreaks of laziness and whining.

Yes, the recession doesn't affect you if you just don't think about it. These people are poor because they're just not able to invent something, too old or too "wimpy" for the military, and not persistent enough to get school to let them go for free.

[Desertrose]

46. You really don't have a clue, do you?

It has never occurred to you that when you are down& out, you don't necessarily have the emotional or physical reserves to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". You may not have the self esteem to feel you can do anything successfully.

Get a job?? Like a min pay part time job,eh? What if you emotionally/physically aren't able to do that? What if you can't afford transportation of suitable clothing?

School....ummm how do you PAY for that when you don't have enough to buy food??

Military? What if you are elderly or physically unable?

Invent something? Are you serious? Because of the reasons I gave above, this is not a practical possibility.

Honestly, I am tired of people who don't have a clue about today's poor constantly whining.

[sad sally]

59. And being poor, it's difficult if not impossible

to rally other poor people to organize, to take to the streets and demand jobs, affordable housing, affordable transportation, affordable health care. When your life is taken up with trying to survive every day...

[Desertrose]

62. Doesn't leave much time or energy for anything else, does it?

Hard enough to organize people who are NOT involved with the incredible daily struggle of survival.

[Romulox]

47. *INVENT* something? How out of touch can one get? nt

[Carni]

50. US Military is just hankering to sign up middle aged people

What a stupid suggestion.

[LanternWaste]

75. And thus he jumped the sharked.

And thus he jumped the sharked... though most observers simply hit the snooze again and went back to sleep for another ten minutes.

[ehrnst]

37. Because if you don't have something nice to say about being poor, you should be silent? (nt)

[Name removed]

100. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[cali]

21. that's an absurd claim.

your talking about rural poverty many decades ago. how poverty has manifested itself within our society has changed. It's still wrenching and psychologically damaging- as well as being a state that physically damages.

[Shandris]

26. Exactly what I was thinking.

In order to put his response in context, imagine someone had looked at his dad and scoffed and said 'Oh yeah? Well 40 years ago my pappy did it with a bow and arrow. No person with a gun and AMMO is truly poor, quit'cher whining'.

If you want to follow this route of thinking to its' logical end, OP, you may as well say none of us are poor because we have fucking cotton and burlap.

[PVnRT]

60. Cotton and burlap? That's all fancy-like

Why, if you're clothing yourself with anything other than leaves and grass, you're practically a millionaire!

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

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[ljm2002]

24. "Anyone who owns a TV is not truly poor"...

...ah, yes, the old poorer-than-thou gambit.

I bet your dad also walked 5 miles to school and back again each day, with snow up to here, and it was uphill both ways!

You are right, there those who are poorer than what the author talks about. But still, there is a big difference between owning a small TV and living in a cheap apartment vs. having a nice home and not worrying about whether the children will have new shoes when school starts. Or whether you can actually feed them three meals a day.

So let's say the author sells that TV. Well, in fact, unless it's a really nice TV, they may get $5 or $10 for it, $20 tops. Then what do you suggest they do with that money -- put it in a savings account until they accrue enough to buy a rifle? At today's interest rates, it'll be a damned long wait. Or maybe they should sell the TV, and the jalopy and invest in a rifle. Of course, since most people live in cities, giving their children "a rifle and three rounds of .22 ammunition" would likely not turn out all that well.

It amazes me how kneejerk people can be sometimes. It is not whining to try and give people a sense of what it means to live at or below the poverty level.

Hey, I grew up poor but never so poor that we went without food. However, I do remember going to school with holes in the soles of my shoes, so there is that. It does have its effects, call it whining if you like.

[slackmaster]

29. Or a car.

I bet your dad also walked 5 miles to school and back again each day, with snow up to here, and it was uphill both ways!

It was six miles.

[ljm2002]

34. Or a rifle. n/t

[ehrnst]

55. Over broken glass, and he was GRATEFUL, right? No whining!!(nt)

[BuelahWitch]

78. You could have a car that was paid off when times were better

and still be poor.

[ehrnst]

42. Someone was talking about people having cel phones at the food bank.

And howling about that. As if access to a phone is some sort of luxury, especially if you're trying to find a job, have kids, and are staying with family or friends.

[ljm2002]

52. Well, see, we don't want the hoi polloi taking part...

...in the information age. Why, just look what happened in Egypt! Trouble all over the place, all because those damn peasants have access to the communications technology that was developed by their betters, and now they think they have a right to use it for their nefarious purposes.

Yessiree, the best thing is to keep the masses dumbed down and disconnected. No TVs, no Internet, no cell phones. That oughtta keep 'em in line. Too bad if it means they can never get out of poverty; whoever said they should anyway?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

What, you're quoting our founding documents? How utterly naive...

[PVnRT]

61. According to slackmaster

they should take that $20 and INVENT SOMETHING! Then they'll be rich and awesome, just like Ayn Rand says.

[ehrnst]

44. Would you like some cheese with that whine? (nt)

[Bragi]

51. Tthe bankrupt American dream lives on

Thanks for illustrating the bankruptcy of the classic American dream.

If only people worked a bit harder, then their jobs wouldn't be outsourced to low wage countries, their pensions would still be whole, their savings would not have been stolen, their homes would not have been foreclosed.

Yeah, for sure.

If your post isn't a joke, then I really don't understand what you have in common with people here.

[PVnRT]

57. If only we could unrec moronic individual posts like yours

[Gormy Cuss]

66. So, only starvation level subsistence constitutes "real poverty"?

It sounds like your father lived indoors and probably had a least one set of clothing. If his family was really poor they'd make a shelter out of boulders and logs and would fashion spears out of sturdy green branches, and their body coverings would be fashioned out of hides and grasses.

This is beneath you, slack.

[LanternWaste]

73. I imagine many people believe they...

I imagine many people believe they themselves have an absolute knowledge of what is or is not poor; much like the author... and yourself it would seem.

[kentuck]

94. Oh yeah!

We had to sprinkle baking powder on Grandma's grave so she would rise on Judgement Day...

[fishwax]

97. being poor does not preclude having a TV

:shrug:

[SheilaT]

4. Get rid of the TV.

Most of what's advertized isn't worth owning.

[Dragonfli]

14. Yes that is the beginning and then you get where I am

Being poor means you have four cups of oats left to eat and no money in sight.
Being poor is trying to stay warm in an apt in Buffalo with no heat and the toilet frozren over.
Being poor is knowing eviction proceedings have started and soon the cops will come to make sure you are in the streets.

That is still just the beginning of the next stage.
homelessness sand hoplessness probably leading to death.

I will let you know when that next stage hits, that is if I survive until it warms up in Buffalo.

There are stages and no one even talkes about the fact that poverty is killing people and both parties are right now proposing more death by cold, heat, and starvation.

So lets keep it real and get the party to give a shit again about the dying as well as the middlle-class (the soon to be poor)

[bobbolink]

67. Thank you for sharing the pain that you are living with.

It is cruel beyond words that there is a dictator who is killing his own people.

It is ALSO JUST AS CRUEL when the richest country in the world lets its citizens DIE in poverty, and ignores it!

I am ashamed more than I can say that not one person before me bothered to respond to your pain.

:cry: :nuke: This country is rotten to the core.

[G_j]

19. K&R

[Jankyn]

20. K&R ... n/t

[Starry Messenger]

39. k&r

[dembotoz]

45. i am not dumpster diving, i am not homeless, i do not live in a tent in haiti,

but i sure as hell do not have much money

do i define myself as poor?
prob upper lower class or really low middle class.

Lots of folks here have it a lot worse than i

and if it really sucks for me

god help them

[BuelahWitch]

82. Me either

But I wouldn't be able to handle a major illness or car repair.

[JCMach1]

49. 30 Days- Minimum Wage

Morgan Spurlock did a good job of this. Watch it if you can.

Also, read Barabara Ehrenreich's 'Nickeled and Dimed'

[nolabear]

65. I was going to mention "Nickled and Dimed". DOG work, and nothing to show but brute survival.

DO that for a year, rain or shine, sick or well, young or old, and then talk to me about union busting and whining. (Not toward you; toward reply #2).

[bobbolink]

69. The constant and iimportant lesson from Nickel and Dimed is the HUGE need for more low-income

housing everywhere in this country. That was the over-arching need throughout the book.

Yet, as much as that has been shouted here on DU, people can't seem to grasp the plain fact, and keep talking about more goddamned SHELTERS AND CHARITY!

I have come to the inescabable conclusion that "progressives' absolutely do NOT want to hear reality, and certainly do NOT want to participate in solving the LOW-INCOME housing crisis.

It isn't that more people need to read that excellent book, because a lot here have. It is that people need to simply start giving a damn, and working for real solutions that don't give them instant popularity, like the protests in Michigan.

[JCMach1]

71. Right about the housing issue... We have plenty of housing in America

It just isn't available to poor people... and no one is addressing that problem.

[bobbolink]

76. So, what would it take to build a fire to GET it "addressed"?

People can get all excited about the right to organize, but can't seem to give a damn about the right to have a ROOF.

[XanaDUer]

77. You're right

Poor people in this country are so disenfranchised, no one seems to care about them at all. Hell, all I hear on TV is "the middle class" this and "the middle class" that. I wanted them to say, "the poor, the working and the middle classes."

Crappy apts in this country run about $500-$600 minimum, and the folks who rent should get some kind of tax break on their rent. The homeless are just SOL.

[bobbolink]

80. Thank you! So, how can we come together to change that?

It is getting worse and worse.

I just posted to a friggin' thread claiming that Michigann is "about all of us". In the article quoted, it clearly said it was about the muddleclass, so the conclusion that cannot be missed from that is that muddleclass people are totally dissing us.

That is the prescription for an explosion. There is only so long that poor peopple wiill take that kind of shit, before Vesuvius-ing all over the rest of you.

I suggest immediately changing course on this leaving us out!

[JCMach1]

83. Not just disenfranchised-- hell, brainwashed

from http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-labor-union-decline

[JCMach1]

81. They have to exist first... in a universe where postive thinking works

(i.e. note not the REAL universe). People without a home just have not been able to visualize it properly yet. They are positively challenged in some way.

Literally, pop cultural ethos is to shun that which is negative.

Until our culture learns to see the lack of housing and see the faces of poverty, we aren't going to do shite. (yeah, I have the flu and am feeling a bit cynical today).

[bobbolink]

84. I realize you are trying to be funny. When you are walking in my shoes, I think

you will find just how un-funny that is.

I asked a serious question, and this is the typical response... blow it off with "humor".

[JCMach1]

87. Not making myself clear- the postive thinking movement

has had a VERY negative effect on how America views poverty. Ironically, I just finished Ehrenreich's book, "Smile, or Die".

Not her best, but where it is most applicable is in terms of how America views poverty. The answer is... it doesn't 'view' poverty at all as it is the antithesis of the 'positive' message of the self.

[bobbolink]

88. I understood exactly what you were saying, and it was belittling the real need for housing.

I also read Ehrenreich, and, in fact, really dug into Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.

However, your joke fell flat, and givenn that I just spent a week sick in my car and can't recover because I am homeless I believe gives me the right to judge what is funny about the lack of housing and what isn't.

I would appreciate more sensitivity from you on this.

[JCMach1]

91. Nothing funny about it at all... just pointing out why even the left

will talk about 'whining'...

It has always pissed me off that Obama (and not just him, everyone it seems) always talks about the 'middle' class and the word poverty is never uttered. Even our Democratic leaders don't want to put poverty on the agenda.

[bobbolink]

92. And that includes Bernie Sanders, and why I have stopped his emails.

When a lot of you start speaking up, this will begin to change.

Until then, we are on our own, and we KNOW it. So, fuck the votes! We're tired of being abandoned and ignored.

[XanaDUer]

93. I HATE that positive-thinking, everthing-is-okay BS

this country runs on. Sometimes, things suck and, until you acknowledge that, then things will always suck.

[bobbolink]

95. Its just a pacifier for the masses.

I strongly suggest Ehrenreich's "Bright-Sided". Lots of very good historical info, plus very sick stuff being done in corporations in the name of "positive thinking".

[JCMach1]

72. Exactly, don't see Ehrenreich as whining... or Spurlock for that matter...

The shit they experienced was real.

[bobbolink]

79. Ehrenreich was scathing in her summation of this country's treatment of poor working people!

Of course, there are now so many who call any sort of speaking out that they don't like as "whining".

To that, I direct this quotation for today from Sojo:

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
- Flannery O'Connor

[JCMach1]

85. Poverty comes any many forms... we shouldn't forget that

all of them miserable.

[bobbolink]

86. The worst poverty of all is the lack of compassion.

And that is precisely what today's "progressives" suffer from.

Just look at all the "me, me me" in Wisconsin, totally ignoring people who are REALLY hurting.

Poverty. Of. Heart.

[JCMach1]

89. Read Kevin Drum's article on WI in Mother Jones

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-labor-union-decline

He is saying basically the same, but putting it into historical perspective.

...But despite its roots in organized labor, the New Left wasn't much interested in all this. As the Port Huron Statement, the founding document of Students for a Democratic Society, famously noted, the students who formed the nucleus of the movement had been "bred in at least modest comfort." They were animated not by workplace safety or the cost of living, but first by civil rights and antiwar sentiment, and later by feminism, the sexual revolution, and environmentalism. They wore their hair long, they used drugs, and they were loathed by the mandarins of organized labor. By the end of the '60s, the feeling was entirely mutual. New Left activists derided union bosses as just another tired bunch of white, establishment Cold War fossils, and as a result, the rupture of the Democratic Party that started in Chicago in 1968 became irrevocable in Miami Beach four years later. Labor leaders assumed that the hippies, who had been no match for either Richard Daley's cops or establishment control of the nominating rules, posed no real threat to their continued dominance of the party machinery. But precisely because it seemed impossible that this motley collection of shaggy kids, newly assertive women, and goo-goo academics could ever figure out how to wield real political power, the bosses simply weren't ready when it turned out they had miscalculated badly. Thus George Meany's surprise when he got his first look at the New York delegation at the 1972 Democratic convention. "What kind of delegation is this?" he sneered. "They've got six open fags and only three AFL-CIO people on that delegation!"
"What kind of delegation is this? They've got six open fags and only three AFL-CIO people!"

But that was just the start. New rules put in place in 1968 led by almost geometric progression to the nomination of George McGovern in 1972, and despite McGovern's sterling pro-labor credentials, the AFL-CIO refused to endorse him. Not only were labor bosses enraged that the hippies had thwarted the nomination of labor favorite Hubert Humphrey, but amnesty, acid, and abortion were simply too much for them. Besides, Richard Nixon had been sweet-talking them for four years, and though relations had recently become strained, he seemed not entirely unsympathetic to the labor cause. How bad could it be if he won reelection?...

[bobbolink]

90. Yes, it is a lot of selfishness, and it shows in Michigan.

I LIVE this... I don't have to go finding a magazine to tell me that what I know from my life is true.

What I NEED is people who are willing to actually stand with me, and speak out and Take Action.

[joshcryer]

99. For perspective (don't kill me):

Being poor is knowing exactly how much of everything you can't enjoy, meaning everything.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids because they failed to return with enough scrap from the garbage heap.

Being poor is having to keep digging in garbage heaps for makeshift shoes because they’re what you can afford, and then having the shoes break down on you, because there’s not an throw away shoe that's worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping that all the rotten teeth in your mouth don't kill you one day.

Being poor is knowing your kid has a 50% chance or less of making it past 5 while living in the rotting leaking shack you live in.

Being poor is digging through throwaway trash heaps for food to eat, the hunger so great that you fight your friends for the best part of whatever you find.

Being poor is living in a shanty town.

Being poor is returning home from a 12 hour job at a shirt factory running sewing machines, to feed your kids a bit of rice that is running out and got sogy from the rains that leaked into your home that you rent from a slum lord.

Being poor is wondering if the assholes who you work for are lying when they say they're paying you as much as they can, every night as you pack their trucks to be shipped to multinational corporations to sell to westerners who complain about being poor.

Being poor is no toys. Or rather, toys made of garbage laying around.

Being poor is no heater anywhere in the house, or electricity for that matter, or a dry bed.

Being poor means you can't leave your rice unhidden or your pot to cook it in because someone may steal it and you'll starve, because a pot is very expensive and hard to come by.

Being poor is hoping your kids make it past a year old.

Being poor is not stealing anything for fear of reprisal from those who have the armed thugs who run everything in your local part of the shanty. Being poor is letting those same people rape you or steal from you in other ways just so your kids have a chance.

Being poor is no underwear, and no change of clothes, or hot running water, or water that you don't have to boil for 20 minutes before you consume it for fear of life threatening diarrhea.

Being poor is not enough space for anyone living anywhere near you, where ones entire home is the size of a typical western closet.

Being poor is wishing you had shoes.

Being poor is the skyrise buildings outside of the shanty town.



Being poor is thinking .15 cents a day fucking sucks ass but you have to survive somehow.

Being poor is relying on one another to secure your shacks from would be robbers, including those thugs who pretend to be your police.

Being poor is a 48 hour shift in sweltering conditions so that a multinational corp can get its tshirt quota met in time.

Being poor is not being able to read the various letters you find in the garbage heaps.

Being poor is not having a bathtub or a toilet.

Being poor is not having a car or electricity to plug a lamp in to that you found in a garbage heap.

Being poor is eating cockroaches and enjoying them as fine cuisine.

Being poor is believing that nothing can make a difference but going on breathing every fucking day just because instinct makes you.

Being poor is being so marginalized the people in the skyscrapers next to you don't even notice you're there.

Being poor is carrying your kids on your hip to your job 14 hours a day.

Being poor is the police not even coming into your living area because they don't want to die.

Being poor is not talking to that girl you like because she's on the other side of the fence and if you went over there you'd be arrested for vagrancy and she'd laugh at you for being a slum dog.

Being poor is hoping you'll have dinner more than twice a weak.

Being poor is dirt with lots of paper and plastic on it, sidewalks are for rich people.

Being poor is people knowing they know something about you by the way you talk, since you are illiterate, have no meaningful skills, and are forced into a life of suffering perpetually, your brain never having had the chance to become something.

Being poor is needing that window to be able to be opened at work so you don't stroke out from the unrelenting heat. A fan would be a plus but the boss keeps it in his office.

Being poor is not having any books, or being able to read, for that matter.

Being poor is having no utility bill to worry about.

Being poor is when someone else throws a barely eaten sandwich in the trash and you're not allowed to go get it, because the trash is in a tourist area no-slum-dog zone.

Being poor is knowing you work harder than anyone, anywhere, based on results returned.

Being poor is people being unsurprised you are stupid because your society couldn't teach you to read.

Being poor is people being surprised to learn that you smell like shit because the videos of your people show you looking all nice and shiny.

Being poor is your child dying from a trivially preventable infection that you had no access to a doctor to treat.

Being poor is never being able to buy anything that wasn't needed for your immediate survival, including the bribes you give out to keep your children from being raped.

Being poor is wishing you could buy ramen at all.

Being poor is having to live with choices your state made for you before you or three generations of your family were even concieved of.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting to help you through missionary work or other "aid" that allowed you to be born in the first place.

Being poor is knowing you've already been judged and if it weren't for some meager semblance of "civility" or a potential threat of "major uprising" you'd be wiped off of the face of the planet for merely existing.

Being poor is seeing twinkling lights of people far away celebrating some western-pagan-corporate holiday which you only know of from magazine clippings and bits of wrapping paper after the fact. The garbage heaps are at least colorful this time of the year.

Being poor is stripping wire and collecting cans for change.

Being poor is deciding it's all right to base a relationship on who rapes you less.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't send off that letter written on your bosses memo pad asking the local officials to do something about your living conditions. He probably didn't transcribe it properly anyway.

Being poor is hoping your boss will let you skip out on the loading part of the day, because it's been 30 hours and your kid needs sleep.

Being poor is knowing that you made no mistakes and you are existing because of that fact, as one mistake in the hell hole in which you live is certain death.

Being poor is callusouses on your feet that never go away, bruises from the beatings, cuts from various run ins with rusted metal, and leisons on your lips and hands. Plus a cough that doesn't go away.

Being poor is wishing you could be rich enough to lease something only to not lease something because you see what wealth is all about and that such an act would be no better than paying the local thugs bribe money.

Being poor is weeks unpaid work hoping that your boss comes through when the quotas are met, being glad to be out of the sweltering sun and rain.

Being poor is 4 years of slave labor for a few pots, a kid, a cotton blanket, and some weaved baskets to put things in. The shack is still rented.

Being poor is no bed.

Being poor is not having a shelter to go to because everyone who needs a shelter lives in the shanty town.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you don't kill yourself and rid the planet of your blight.

Being poor is knowing how futile and impossible it is to not be poor.

Being poor is seeing how no options you have.

Being poor is running in place, over a fucking cliff.

Being poor is people wondering why you stay, while neglecting everything else that was said.