The Story of Josh Part Forty Three: Government Cheese and Monopoly Money
When we reached a town of more than ten thousand people I bid the kids and the dog in the van bon voyage and set out on foot. They were good traveling companions but I decided that I needed to shake things up a bit, it was getting entirely too comfortable. So with a pack on my back I started down a tidy New England road heading nowhere in particular.
Half an hour later a nondescript truck passed me and then pulled to the side of the road. The driver stuck his arm out the window and motioned me toward the opposite side of the vehicle. I hesitated for a minute, give me at least that much credit, and then decided that if the guy wanted to kill me and wear my skin he could just run me over with his truck.
I opened the door and he greeted me warmly. He introduced himself as Joe and said that he was on his way to see his folks and that he could drive me into town. He looks very familiar to me but I let it go just being happy to have a ride. When I ask him why he picked up a stranger he tells me that in this area they tend to want to help people out and that he knows what it’s like to not be “In Funds”. I think that I should be offended by the assumption that I am poor but there is no sense of pity or derision in his voice so I am not offended.
I tell him that I have never really known any other life and he asks me what I mean.
As always this is a therapy session, I don’t know if he is a doctor but apparently he is in.
We have always been a family of working poor. There are exceptions to that statement, some people have been more successful than others and there have been times when we have had more money than we needed to subsist. But I have known the life of government cheese and money that looks like it was rejected from a monopoly set in the Philippines. This is not to say that people in my family are lazy. Sure we have some useless fucks in our ranks on both sides but I like to think that we have a strong work ethic in our family … no, you know what? We DO have a strong fucking work ethic in my family. Even some of the people in my family that I cannot stand have some of the best work ethics of anyone I have ever known.
So suck it!
Where was I? Oh yeah, I grew up poor and I have lived most of my life as one of the working poor. This is not a plea for sympathy or a desire for people to feel sorry for me. There are people that are considerably worse off than I have ever been.
When I was a kid we didn’t have much money and for stretches we were on the dole. But it never felt as bad as I now realize it was. My mother made sure that we had food on the shelves and someplace to live. Even when she was battling her own addictions and demons she was able to feed and clothe us. Mom always made sure that our birthdays and ESPECIALLY our Christmases were better than they had any right being. But when she reached a point where she knew that we were in real trouble she was able to see past pride and ask my grandparents for help, I do not see that as a weakness I see that as strength.
My father also never shirked his responsibilities unlike so many other men that seem to think that the care of children is the sole responsibility of the mothers and will hardly lift a finger to help their children. My dad paid his child support, my father always used all of his visitation rights, and my father never assumed that someone else was caring for his kids. Even when dad was drinking when I was a kid I never felt that we were anything other than his first priority.
When I moved out on my own (with roommates and that is a story I am getting real close to telling) I had to make it on very little. It was hard but I took pride in being able to take care of myself and pay my bills without asking for help. I cannot say the same for one of my roommates but I will save that story for another time.
Karen and I have had a hard financial row to hoe in the last going on seventeen years. And while that is a story that needs to be told it needs to be told as part of the larger narrative that is the story of me and Karen.
I don’t take money for granted. I do not think that there will always be money to cover all of our expenses. I worry everyday that we will again melt down financially and that next time there will be nothing that I can do about it. If it were not for my wife the worry of money would drive me to an even more severe depression. She keeps me grounded and takes much of the burden off of my meaty shoulders.
I wish I could buy my wife the life that she deserves. I wish that I could buy my children the things that they want. I wish that we did not have to live paycheck to paycheck. I wish that I had never been forced to borrow money from others and I wish that BOTH sides had handled that situation better.
It sucks to be poor …
As I finish the narrative I realize that we have driven clean through the town and are now approaching a gated house. I ask Joe where we are going and he tells me that he didn’t want me to stop and he figured that I wouldn’t mind having dinner with his mom and dad. We pull up to the gates and the pit falls out of my stomach and ice fills my body. I have seen pictures of this house before, the stone gargoyles are a dead giveaway.
I am terrified. They say you should never meat your heroes.
That’s then for today, we have no more time to spend.
Half an hour later a nondescript truck passed me and then pulled to the side of the road. The driver stuck his arm out the window and motioned me toward the opposite side of the vehicle. I hesitated for a minute, give me at least that much credit, and then decided that if the guy wanted to kill me and wear my skin he could just run me over with his truck.
I opened the door and he greeted me warmly. He introduced himself as Joe and said that he was on his way to see his folks and that he could drive me into town. He looks very familiar to me but I let it go just being happy to have a ride. When I ask him why he picked up a stranger he tells me that in this area they tend to want to help people out and that he knows what it’s like to not be “In Funds”. I think that I should be offended by the assumption that I am poor but there is no sense of pity or derision in his voice so I am not offended.
I tell him that I have never really known any other life and he asks me what I mean.
As always this is a therapy session, I don’t know if he is a doctor but apparently he is in.
We have always been a family of working poor. There are exceptions to that statement, some people have been more successful than others and there have been times when we have had more money than we needed to subsist. But I have known the life of government cheese and money that looks like it was rejected from a monopoly set in the Philippines. This is not to say that people in my family are lazy. Sure we have some useless fucks in our ranks on both sides but I like to think that we have a strong work ethic in our family … no, you know what? We DO have a strong fucking work ethic in my family. Even some of the people in my family that I cannot stand have some of the best work ethics of anyone I have ever known.
So suck it!
Where was I? Oh yeah, I grew up poor and I have lived most of my life as one of the working poor. This is not a plea for sympathy or a desire for people to feel sorry for me. There are people that are considerably worse off than I have ever been.
When I was a kid we didn’t have much money and for stretches we were on the dole. But it never felt as bad as I now realize it was. My mother made sure that we had food on the shelves and someplace to live. Even when she was battling her own addictions and demons she was able to feed and clothe us. Mom always made sure that our birthdays and ESPECIALLY our Christmases were better than they had any right being. But when she reached a point where she knew that we were in real trouble she was able to see past pride and ask my grandparents for help, I do not see that as a weakness I see that as strength.
My father also never shirked his responsibilities unlike so many other men that seem to think that the care of children is the sole responsibility of the mothers and will hardly lift a finger to help their children. My dad paid his child support, my father always used all of his visitation rights, and my father never assumed that someone else was caring for his kids. Even when dad was drinking when I was a kid I never felt that we were anything other than his first priority.
When I moved out on my own (with roommates and that is a story I am getting real close to telling) I had to make it on very little. It was hard but I took pride in being able to take care of myself and pay my bills without asking for help. I cannot say the same for one of my roommates but I will save that story for another time.
Karen and I have had a hard financial row to hoe in the last going on seventeen years. And while that is a story that needs to be told it needs to be told as part of the larger narrative that is the story of me and Karen.
I don’t take money for granted. I do not think that there will always be money to cover all of our expenses. I worry everyday that we will again melt down financially and that next time there will be nothing that I can do about it. If it were not for my wife the worry of money would drive me to an even more severe depression. She keeps me grounded and takes much of the burden off of my meaty shoulders.
I wish I could buy my wife the life that she deserves. I wish that I could buy my children the things that they want. I wish that we did not have to live paycheck to paycheck. I wish that I had never been forced to borrow money from others and I wish that BOTH sides had handled that situation better.
It sucks to be poor …
As I finish the narrative I realize that we have driven clean through the town and are now approaching a gated house. I ask Joe where we are going and he tells me that he didn’t want me to stop and he figured that I wouldn’t mind having dinner with his mom and dad. We pull up to the gates and the pit falls out of my stomach and ice fills my body. I have seen pictures of this house before, the stone gargoyles are a dead giveaway.
I am terrified. They say you should never meat your heroes.
That’s then for today, we have no more time to spend.
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