MucheDumbre

I know they’re cold, but there’s nothing I can do, the power’s been off for 4 days now. Maybe another blanket on them and one on the windows will help. It’s still November, it doesn’t get cold enough to freeze to death this early.

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Oh, if only I could have made something other than cold potted meat sandwiches for dinner, maybe they could sleep easier. Atleast there were 2 cookies left, one for each of them. Milk would have made the cookies better, but that’s too much of a luxury to think about. Ha, even Spam is a luxury these days.

shhh…..shhh, I know baby, I know. Here, lay next to your sister, the two of you laying together will help keep you both warm. Yes, I’ll make something better than potted meat for breakfast. How does peanut butter and bananas on crackers sound? I know bread would be better but we ate the last piece at dinner… I know the store is open early, I’ll try and get some in the morning then. No, that’s your school lunch money, you keep it and eat a good hot lunch, really I don’t need it, I’ve got a couple dollars in change, I’ll get some bread. Don’t worry, just get some sleep.

I really don’t know what happened to us. We’ve never been rich or even well-off but we’ve always gotten by. What happened? Where did it go wrong. I try and think of a specific moment, a moment where I can say “AHA! Right There! Right There is where it went bad” But try as I might, I just can’t find that moment.

DAMN! The mortgage! It’s 3 months late today. 2 months is ok, but 3? What am I going to tell them this time? How many times can I beg for more time. Where will we go if they throw us out? The kids can probably stay with my in-laws. They can barely take care of themselves, but it’s better than the camp grounds, I don’t like it out there and there is no way I’m going to let my kids stay out there. I can live with whatever happens, but not them.

That woman today, why did she look at me like she was better than I was? I don’t understand that. I work! I work harder than she does. All she does is sit there and check off the names of who’s next. I went to college damnit, I work 5-6 days a week and another 3 nights a week. I am not asking for a free-handout! Does she think I enjoy coming into the office and asking for help? Does she think that this is somehow fun? That it’s not the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life? I am not a drag on society, I work! I pay my taxes, I save part of my check each week, I send my kids to school and make sure they keep their grades up! Yes, I am 3 months behind on my mortgage, my power is turned off and my other utilities are extended well beyond their grace periods, but I didn’t do anything on purpose! I couldn’t stop the price of gas from going up, the price of eggs from doubling, and the price of milk,bread,juice from tripling. Fresh fruits & vegetables? Those are exotic expenditures for us now. I didn’t do anything wrong! I worked harder than I ever had, I had to spend more money because everything cost more, I couldn’t help that the money I was making went down drastically. You can adjust when there’s a gradual incline but the prices tripled in a matter of weeks… my paydays didn’t.

At first it was just a trickle, nothing big. I managed the $20 loss here and the $15 loss there. That was ok because that was our weekly extra spending money and savings. A cheap dinner at Steak ‘n Shake and movie. Maybe a fancy dinner a Carrabba’s and a DVD rental. A little bit in the savings account. Sure, it was nice, but those things could wait. But then one week we lost another $50. That hurt, not much, really just a little but it wasn’t going to be a permanent thing it was going to come back and gas isn’t going to go much higher than $3.50.

Another 2 weeks, gas is up to almost $4 a gallon, total lost wages are now at $225 a week. I wish I could

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pick up more than 2 nights at Burger King, but I’m lucky to have gotten that as a second job,  since this is the 1st summer they haven’t hired high school kids. It’s going to get better soon I know it.

How did I go from being comfortable to paying one bill a month and hoping and praying that I can get enough money to pay the others before they shut them off? I didn’t loose my job, in fact I have 2? So where is all the money going?

$7 for a box of tampons. $3.50 for a box of maxipads, $4 a bottle for midol and 3 girls living in the home.

$7 for instant coffee. $3.75 for the generic coffee creamer, $2.07 for a loaf of bread…. all luxuries, but also necessities. Atleast the coffee can be my breakfast and lunch and the girls can have some kind of sandwichs. The Salvation Army always gives us something that can go on bread.

Atleast gas is down to $1.95. I just wish the prices of everything else were going down also, but they are still rising.

I guess that’s where all it went. I was too accustomed to the luxury if having things like tampons,soft toilet paper, fresh apples,fresh broccoli. It’s healthier to eat turkey sandwiches for after school snacks or weekend lunches, but Ramon noodles are 5 for a $1 and a hungry stomach doesn’t care if it’s filled with junk or healthy food, as long as it’s filled.

I know that I should have paid the cable bill when it was 1 month old, but they let me go to 2 months, now I have to pay both and that’s just a fantansy. Same with water and power. I was doing so good too. I had it down to a science, pay water short by $10. Use that $10 to pay for school lunches. Let cable get to 75 days and then pay one month and get a pay arrangement for the rest and then use what’s left to pay power. I can turn the meter back on if they come out, so that gives me an extra week or two to pay that bill, that way if I have to, I can pay only the unregulated charges on the phone to keep it on. Cable and the house phone are not luxuries. How do I work without a phone? How do the kids do their homework without the computer? How do any of us find some kind of stress relief without a break that only a phone call from a friend or a comedy show at night can give?

It was all going smooth. It was even kinda fun, it was all small victories in a losing battle. I knew I would be getting a check at the end of the month and that would pay 90% of the mortgage, so everything was fine.

Unfortunately when you bounce on air like that, eventually you crash. Only I kept expecting everything to even out before it crashed. It’s my fault, I know it is. But hasn’t everyone made a mistake in their lives? Am I the only one who has ever made a bad call?

I never expected the little one to get sick and need medication. I’m not worried about the ER bill, what are they going to do? Hurt my credit? HA!HA! But I didn’t expect her to get sick the same time the baby sitter did. I didn’t expect to have to take off 3 days from work. Once that domino started to fall…they all fell. Tomorrow is going to be even colder, there is no money and there is no food and soon there will be no house. I didn’t do anything wrong damnit! Why did I lose everything? Why do people look at me like I am a lazy-good-for-nothing? Like I am trash! 10 months ago I WAS THE SAME AS THEY ARE! Don’t they get that through no fault of their own or very little fault … 10 months from now THEY COULD BE ME!

Why do we need to help the people below us? Because we don’t leave people behind in this country. We don’t leave a man or a woman down. We run back through the bullets and we get them. If they are injured and can’t get up by themselves, we carry them. We don’t leave our people behind.

There are a 1001 reasons why someone is in need. Some are lazy, some are unlucky and some are just as innonecent in their poverty as the guy with the great job,stable job, great benefits is as lucky in his. The unlucky ones worked just as hard, went to school just as long… but shit happens.

We don’t leave people behind. We’ve forgotten this. Along the way “poor” became synonymous with ‘minority’ and ‘uneducated’ and ‘lazy’. It became easier to get angry over our Social Policies. It became easier to say, “This is my money, why am I forced to give it to those people who refuse to help themselves”

It’s your money, yes. You didn’t cause these people to fall, I know. Yes, you did everything right. You pulled yourself up and so can they. I know, I’ve heard them all. But what happens when everything out there is working against you and you just can’t pull yourself up? What happens when you are begging to work, begging to make enough money to pay just a couple bills and feed your kids, not one or the other, but there is nothing out there. This isn’t a problem for certain demographics anymore. This isn’t being seen only in poorest,laziest and least educated of our community. This is being seen in every section of our society. I don’t know the answer. I’m not smart enough to figure out a plan that helps everyone and makes everyone happy. I only know one thing….

We don’t leave our people behind.

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