Posted on 09/10/2011 1:00:36 PM PDT by Pangloss84
By John Scalzi
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
(Really being poor is not caring how much anything costs because you have no money anyway)
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
(Really being poor is not having a TV, or a cell phone, a computer, an iPod, a washing machine, a toaster...)
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.
(Really being poor is dreaming of having a 10th-hand rusty bicycle with flat tires)
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
(Really being poor is not having any teeth)
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends’ houses but never has friends over to yours.
(Really being poor is not having a house)
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.
(Really being poor is not eating during the school lunch time)
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
(Really being poor is living UNDER the freeway)
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
(Really being poor is having no idea that food comes in a neatly packaged sanitary box)
Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn’t mind when you ask for help.
(Really being poor is not having any siblings that survived into adulthood.)
Being poor is off-brand toys.
(Oh, the unendurable Hell that is living in America!)
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
(Really being poor is burning ox dung for heat in your tar-paper one room shack)
Being poor is knowing you can’t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
(Really being poor is never having $5 to leave around)
Being poor is hoping your kids don’t have a growth spurt.
(Really being poor is knowing your kids are so malnurished they will ever have a growth spurt.)
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn’t have make dinner tonight because you’re not hungry anyway.
(Really being poor is being where there are no stores to steal meat from)
Being poor is Goodwill underwear.
(Really being poor is NO underwear)
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
(Really being poor is not enough FOOD for everyone who lives with you)
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
(Really being poor is having NO shoes.)
Being poor is your kid’s school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
(Really being poor is when your school has no textbooks, lights or roof)
Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.
(Really being poor is thinking 10 cents an hour is a really good deal.)
Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.
(Really being poor is ALWAYS having to rely on people who don't give a damn about your)
Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.
(Really being poor is having to walk a treadmill 10 hours a day in the equatorial sun to pump water into your rice paddy.)
Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.
(Really being poor is having no dad to even beg for child support)
Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.
(Really being poor is when your bathtub is also your toilet.)
Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger’s trash.
(Really being poor is taking your dinner from a stranger's trash)
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
(Really being poor is watching your kid eat the cockroach with his bread for that extra bit of protein.)
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.
(Really being poor is having no idea what a GED is.)
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
(Really being poor is people beating you for walking around where you don't belong.)
Being poor is not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids.
(Being poor is doing nothing but watch your kids suffer because there are NO jobs.)
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
(Being poor is the police burting into YOUR apartment because you didn't have "protection" money.)
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she’ll probably just laugh at your clothes.
(Really being poor is having no clothes to laugh at.)
Being poor is hoping you’ll be invited for dinner.
(Really being poor is knowing NOBODY gets invited to dinner.)
Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.
(Really being poor is when your sidewalks are paved with nothing but brown glass.)
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
(Being poor is people knowing everything about you by the way you dress.)
Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
(Really being poor is having to let your boss have sex with your children for that 35-cent a day raise.)
Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.
(Really being poor is your kid's teacher having no books in HIS home.)
Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.
(Really being poor is never being short on the utility bill because you have NO utilities.)
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
(Really beig poor is EATING the mac and cheese you dropped on the floor.)
Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
(Really being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere -- and ALWAYS WILL!)
Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.
(Really being poor is living hwere noboday cares whether you're stupid or intelligent.)
Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.
(Really being poor is living where it makes NO DIFFERENCE whether you're lazy or not.)
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
(Really being poor is watching FOR DAYS the sick child in your lap DIE because there is no emergency room, no doctor, no medicine.)
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn’t bought first.
(Oh the Hell that is being poor in America!)
Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar.
(Oh the Hell that is being poor in America!)
Being poor is having to live with choices you didn’t know you made when you were 14 years old.
(Really being poor is being sold into prostitution by your parents when you're SEVEN years old.)
Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
(A expectation of thanks by those who provide you with an unearned standard of living beyond the dreams of 90 percent of humanity -- Those lousy bastards!)
Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.
(I grow tired of Mr. Scalzi's whining now)
Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.
(Make you wanna cry, doesn't it?)
Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.
(The daily assault on one's dignity never ends.)
Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.
(Ah, finally the lib's rejection of moral volition!)
Being poor is knowing you really shouldn’t spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.
(Why not? It goes for your own "free" school lunch!)
Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.
(Scalzi is really getting tiresome.)
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.
(Yawn....)
Being poor is a cough that doesn’t go away.
(Persistant coughs ever happens to rich people. It's against the law in Amerika!)
Being poor is making sure you don’t spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.
(Scalzi had a couch? Rich kid!)
Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.
(Whose fault for mishandling his finances?)
Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.
(And forget Scalzi being grateful to the taxpayers who paid for those night classes! After all, he made the supreme effort to ATTEND!)
Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.
(Beats sharing a dirt floor with the pigs.)
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
(Being grateful is thanking those who run the %$#!@!shelter!)
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
(No, John, we wonder why you're such a sniveling ingrate for not appreciating how lucky you were to be "poor" in 20th century America.)
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
(Yeah, right up there with fighting for survival in a gang-ruled Rio slum.)
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
(That Scalzi says this about living in America shows him to be the educated idiot he is.)
Being poor is running in place.
(I may vomit.)
Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.
(Here's hoping Scalzi does leave this American hell on earth - soon!)
Scalzi’s list may well be one of the Top Ten Stupidest Writings Ever.
The list is far too long to prolong attention, and hasn’t this man heard of medicaid, food stamps, and section 8 housing? Individuals in the United States have options that many other places do not have when you are really in need. Who is this guy? I never heard of him.
being poor is having low skills,productivity,or knowledge and living in a country where government interference by libtards has created minimum wage laws and pro labor union laws that make it difficult or impossible for them to find any kind of job, which keeps them poor permanently.
Do those liberals realize BHO has added a couple more million into that category?
In the eyes of liberals I’m the worst kind of “poor”.
My neighbor has more than me and I still don’t want to steal it.
I have experienced nearly everything on that list, barring maybe 4 items. I still experience quite a few of them. It’s called LIFE and you’re right, he’s a whiner.
The penalty for skipping the intro;(
Your parentheses are priceless - as is the privilege of living in the United States.
Poverty is character building - until some unctuous do-gooder liberal takes the challenge away and forces someone else to carry the burden.
My biggest issue isn't the lack of money. It's lucking out and being able to get a nice rental at a good price and because of it, others assume my family has money. I'm just grateful for what I have. But, by next year.... I won't be poor anymore.
Being poor is a way of life for people that think this way. You can see poor people at the race track in Charlotte. You can see poor people at the Bank of America stadium watching the Panthers play football. Even though I have no money I am not poor. I am blessed with a wife that loves me and 2it kids that love me for being their daddy. I will never have a victim mentality. I have empathy for someone tough on their luck but I ha e had it with the constant whining from those on the left. College? I’m still in college at UNCC. I don’t whine about things, no way. The only attitude acceptable to me is one of optimism, hope, and happiness. The fake hope that the Obama campaign used to date rape America with has worn off; the liberals think they can wake up from the bad dream now and use a phony jobs plan to lull us back to sleep. I truly thank God for gi cong me the gifts of life & salvation. I will stay strong and fight for my country. Im glad there are lots of us on the right side.
When my wife from Mexico first came to visit me in MN (as my girlfriend) she was surprised at how I lived because I told her I was poor. She said “how can you say you are poor?” You have a car, your apartment has lots of furniture and you eat at McDonalds regularly.
A few years after getting married, we went on a mission to India. She then said “I think I have sinned in thinking I was poor all my life. Maybe my house was tiny, but at least I didn’t sleep on the sidewalks like those families. Maybe, I had to eat beans and tortillas every day, but at least I never went hungry!”
Being poor is walking around with a backwards Raiders cap and your pants around your ankles so everyone can see your butt crack.
Being poor is beating up a kid after school because he did his homework for class and therefore was acting “white.”
Being poor is when you are a stupid slut and the government provides you food, housing, healthcare and money for each child you conceive with some loser you screwed after dancing with him at a nightclub.
Being poor is when you receive a text on your iPhone from your homies and you all go do a flash mob robbery on some cracker running a convenience store.
“It’s called life ...”
Dittoes. And nothing lasts forever. That $8 per hour job he whines about could lead to somethng better — if he is reliable, dependable, a good worker, shows up on time and sober, gets along well with others, doesn’t complain.
If not, he might have to look in the mirror or listen to himself talk to get a clue why he’s stuck.
Well, I can’t say that “Being poor” is Scalzi’s best work. But I’ve read most of his SF novels, and I think they’re quite good. Especially Old Man’s War and its sequels.
Yep. I think it really helps that I grew up “poor” but never really knew it. I mean, I lived with my grandparents, who were basically subsistence farmers, and a single mom who worked secretarial jobs for very little. There was never much cash around the house. But my grandparents were actually very proud that they owned their own house, grew their own food, took care of themselves... and my mother would tell me all the time, “Clean your plate, don’t you know there are starving children in India/Africa/China/wherever that would be glad to have that??” It didn’t improve my appetite, but it definitely gave me a perspective on poverty. Never do I remember hearing any of them tell me would life would be like if only we had money. All they ever mentioned was what life would be like if we weren’t as fortunate as we are.
As the Reverend Ike used to say: The best thing you can do for poor people is not become one of them.
Same here. Lots of “poor people” started that way, like me, but only a fool doesn’t try to improve their lot in life. I always get angry about the statistics that show how poverty hasn’t improved in 40 years because the poor are getting poorer. Hardly anyone is poor their entire lives, unless they are on the multi-generational welfare gravy train and didn’t do squat to make it better for themselves and their kids. Something is wrong with you if you still have a 40 year old black & white TV with rabbit ears. Our poor have a hell of a lot more than even middle class people did in 1970.
No mention of the food stamps, WIC, free food banks, free computer and $10 high speed internet, free “lifeline” cell phone, section 8 housing, medicaid, energy assistance, and earned income credits.
Surely he’s not talking about the United States? /s
Our current definition of “poor” is a laugh anyway. If you have a roof over your head, electricity, a fridge and an oven, and can eat twice a day, you’re better off than half the modern world. Moreover, you’re better off than 100% of the world 200 years ago. Even the Medici family never had the advantage of antibiotics, flushing toilets, refrigerated food, electric lamps, or clean water. And even the cheapest, rustiest piece-of-crap car would have made them fall to their knees before this Chariot Of The Gods.
Poverty is merely a relationship of material possessions. American poor are the wealthiest poor in the world. In the land of billionaires the millionaires are poor.
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