Eff you, Metro bus dreams.
If I found myself stranded downtown without a car, I would call a friend. Failing that, I would call a cab. I have the number for Yellowcab right here on my phone.
Why, then, do I dream on a twice-monthly basis that I’m stranded in downtown (or, worse, at high school) and I have to take the bus? And I don’t know which bus to take, or where my stop is? And the bus is full of mean people?
I’m not taking the damned Metro bus, because I don’t have to.
I didn’t work my butt off to become middle class so that I could get stranded downtown and take the Metro bus.
Eff you, Metro bus dreams. Go to hell, Metro bus nightmares.
Just kidding. I’m not really that angry about the dreams. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be poor and then work your way out of it. Apparently, it means you never stop having nightmares about being poor.
Eff you, too, annoying conservative radio show hosts.
Also, lately I’ve been hearing a lot of ignorant right-wing people in Houston say things about poor people “bettering” themselves. Mostly it’s been in response to the proposed minimum wage increase. They say that min-wage jobs are only entry level for “responsible” people and that poor people who really want to will “educate themselves” or “better themselves” and then quickly move up from minimum wage.
Let me make this clear, first of all: I am a political moderate. Also: I can see both sides of the min-wage debate.
However: If you didn’t grow up poor, then you don’t know how easy or how difficult it is to work your way out of the lower class. And, therefore, you should shut your mouth. Shut up about it. Seriously – you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, so just stop talking.
Especially if you’re spouting your ignorance on the only radio station in the city that gives traffic reports every ten minutes, and double especially if you have a whiny, poor-man’s-Limbaugh voice.
I shouldn’t be punished for wanting to avoid slow traffic, dammit. I’ve already been through enough.
One Last Thing
Do you ever drink something hot while sitting, and then feel little spears of sweat behind your knees?
That just happened to me. But I had to drink this Cup O Soup. It was keeping me alive.
