Take Your Middle Class Guilt and Shove it

A journal entry from back in 2005:


Yesterday was a bad day.


After a long sleepless night (caused by intense humidity and a lack of air conditioning or even a cool soothing breeze) I awoke to discover that I was $67 overdrawn,  my refrigerator is broken and a balmy 60 degrees and all my perishables are garbage. Which means, in addition to the $67 overdraft, I have to come up with $45 for the service call. And then theres the cost of food.


So I was on a message board and I posted a severely shortened version of the above information.
One of the replies I got said something like: "On a positive note, compared to 4/5 of the world you are very lucky and rich in comparison."

Because I had food and a refrigerator to put it in...


Okayyy... So now HERE'S THE POINT OF MY RANT

I DON'T LIVE IN 4/5 OF THE WORLD, I LIVE HERE AND HERE I AM BROKE. And Speaking of that. Although I DID have a refrigerator AND food, I now, in fact have NEITHER.

I understand that there are starving people in the world who would give their eye teeth to LOSE a fraction of what I HAD. Believe me, I do. But, contrary to popular belief, being poor in the "Richest Country On Earth" Still makes you poor. And it still sucks. And, in some ways, it's WORSE because the dividing line between Poor and Not Poor is much less defined.


After all, you can have a car and a house and a job and still not be able to feed yourself or your family. Or, you may still have to budget what you spend on food with very little leeway. Having a refrigerator full of food does not make you rich. Being able to replace that refrigerator full of food at a moments notice, without having to sacrifice something else, does.


When I was in school at Antioch College, some of my School mates decided to have a "Hunger Day".

I was on the 7 meal plan at the time. Meaning I got one meal a day from the cafeteria and, the rest of the time, I was on my own. So I had to make it count because I didn't have the money to buy much food outside of what the caf provided.

Enter Hunger Day.

The cafeteria was closed all day and this campus group hosted "Educational" Activities. Loads of information focusing mostly on the third world, completely ignoring the starving in their own country... Hell ON THEIR OWN CAMPUS. After all, if you can afford to be at Antioch college, you must be rich. And even if you're not, compared to some guy in New Guinea, you are.


Yeah, but that poor guy in New Guinea is in NEW FUCKING GUINEA. Sun, Sand, Beaches, and a majority of his peers are in the same economic boat. I'm poor in OHIO. And living in a society where several of my so-called-peers are not even in the same economic OCEAN.


But I digress.


Hunger Day was almost 20 years ago and I am still resentful. See, I HAVE been hungry and I have been poor. (which is one of the reasons this loss of good and nutritious food really hurts me).  And I WAS hungry and poor at the time of the event. I didn't even have change for the vending machines, much less lunch in town.

At the time I could not articulate my resentment. I couldn't put my finger on what was bothering me. This was due, In part, to my buying into the propaganda of  "I'm an American and that automatically makes me rich so I don't have the right to complain if I have to do without. We're so much better off than those poor people over there."

Now I can.

HOW DARE YOU presume to teach me a lesson about poverty when I live in poverty every day!
HOW DARE YOU presume to teach me about hunger by denying me my one meal of the day, thereby denying me the right to choose whether or not I wanted to participate. 
HOW DARE YOU refuse to acknowledge that hunger was NOT a break from routine but a GRIM REALITY for some people on that campus.
HOW DARE YOU presume that I don't have the right to complain about being hungry.

So yeah. My perishables are gone, my fridge is broken and I have to fix this problem post haste.
Five years from now, that refrigerator of food won't matter (It doesn't - 05/2010). But, right now, it's an unpleasant and unwelcome setback and it's money that really should be going somewhere else.

Will I recover? Sure. Because I HAVE to. 
Is it the end of the world? No.
Am I better off than some. Yes.


But I really wish people would shut the hell up about how "rich" I am by default because of where I live and what I have, (or what they THINK I have). Especially when they have no Idea how hard I have to work to get it or what I would have to do without to get it back.