The Have Nots
I'll be glad when tax season is over and all the idiots have blown their money. My students, who are almost exclusively from very poor families, are about to make my head explode with stories of giant refunds and the very unwise ways they're being spent. If you can't keep the phone and/or electricity from being disconnected, methinks it might not be smart to use your tax "refund" to buy a go-cart for your 13 year old daughter.
I reckon it's not my business. Thankfully we're getting money back too. The only difference is that the money we're getting was actually paid in by us over the course of the year, unlike some of the people who will be getting new go-carts in the coming weeks. If you took away one dime of it, there'd be someone on the news talking about how poor people are being neglected, and they can't feed their children or pay the bills and the evil government doesn't care.
Do you know how fervently I longed for a go-cart as a child? My uncle worked at Western Auto, and there were three shiny ones mounted on a rack in the front window. The red one spoke to me every time we were in the store. The price tag said $500.00. That was way outta reach back then, and I knew it, but that didn't stop me from pining for it. My mother said she'd get my uncle-- not the one who worked at Western Auto, but the one who was a dairy farmer-- to build me one. He had the skeleton of one in his shed, and he could put a motor in it and get it running for me. That day never came.
About 2 years ago I noticed a halfway put together, rusty old go-cart in my parents' barn. I asked about it. Turns out it's the same one that was promised to me some 20 years ago, and my brother in law got it from my uncle because he was planning to get it going for my nephew. My heart was happy for him, and I offer that fact to you as evidence that my resentment toward the 13 year old student is not rooted solely in jealousy. My resentment is rooted in how backwards the world can be sometimes.
On the other hand, our phone and/or electricity was never disconnected. Ever. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
I reckon it's not my business. Thankfully we're getting money back too. The only difference is that the money we're getting was actually paid in by us over the course of the year, unlike some of the people who will be getting new go-carts in the coming weeks. If you took away one dime of it, there'd be someone on the news talking about how poor people are being neglected, and they can't feed their children or pay the bills and the evil government doesn't care.
Do you know how fervently I longed for a go-cart as a child? My uncle worked at Western Auto, and there were three shiny ones mounted on a rack in the front window. The red one spoke to me every time we were in the store. The price tag said $500.00. That was way outta reach back then, and I knew it, but that didn't stop me from pining for it. My mother said she'd get my uncle-- not the one who worked at Western Auto, but the one who was a dairy farmer-- to build me one. He had the skeleton of one in his shed, and he could put a motor in it and get it running for me. That day never came.
About 2 years ago I noticed a halfway put together, rusty old go-cart in my parents' barn. I asked about it. Turns out it's the same one that was promised to me some 20 years ago, and my brother in law got it from my uncle because he was planning to get it going for my nephew. My heart was happy for him, and I offer that fact to you as evidence that my resentment toward the 13 year old student is not rooted solely in jealousy. My resentment is rooted in how backwards the world can be sometimes.
On the other hand, our phone and/or electricity was never disconnected. Ever. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
My dad died when I was around three years old, leaving my Mom with FIVE kids to raise alone. She took care of us out of the small Social Security check she got until the oldest of us was old enough to watch the younger ones, then she got a job at a shirt factory. At one time, the welfare people wanted her to adopt us out, but she refused. We ate a lot of things that were cheap, like spaghetti and homemade soup and biscuits and gravy for breakfast. If we ate all she cooked, she went without. When I was 13, my grandmother, her mother, who was going blind, came to live with us, and she had to quit work to take care of her. But, like you, our electricity was never disconnected. At that time, there was no such thing as programs that paid your light bill for you, or your gas bill. Of the five of us, all of us at least have some college, two of us have bachelor's degrees, one has his doctorate.
It annoys me to no end the people that use being poor as an excuse not to achieve. I got grants and loans to go to college, and worked to help out, too. Poverty may make things more difficult, but the only thing that makes it impossible is sitting on your backside moaning about how unfair your life is, and how much the government "owes" you.
Posted by
Anonymous |
7:31 PM
Tax season is the new Christmas.
Posted by
Hillbilly Mom |
6:33 PM
I work at a utility company. Today, a woman called up because she was behind on her light bill. She said she had gotten her income tax refund check, but couldn't pay the bill today because the banks were closed and she couldn't cash the check. Our office manager told her we could cash it for her if she paid the bill with it. She said "Can you cash a check for $5600.00?" That was the amount of her "refund" check.
Posted by
Anonymous |
7:41 PM