Via Shakes comes the story of an over privileged doochenozzel who thought he would prove to the world that poor people really are poor because they are lazy and don’t understand the value of hard work and savings.

Let’s start with a few things the asswipe forgot on his way to playing poor.

1) He’s a dude, a young, single white dude with no children. When looking at the census numbers, women between 18 & 64 with children are 30% more likely to be poor than a man in the exact same situation. Elderly women are are 2.7 times more likely to be poor than elderly men.

The numbers are even more disturbing when looking at race. Overall, 22% of Black men and 26% of Black women live in poverty. For whites, only 9.1% of white men are poor.

So before we even look at things like education, he starts out with a greater likelihood of being able to earn a living than virtually everybody else in the country.

But that’s not all folks. He starts with a college education. Some of us (me, hello) have been working on a college education for about 12 years now because we do not have the funds to both support ourselves and attend school full time. Financial aid, for the poorest of us, barely covers tuition and books. It is not uncommon for students to work full time (or more) and attend school full time. And when that is the situation and somethings gotta give (like say your boss threatens to fire you because your class schedule is interfering with his work scheduling) it is usually school that goes first. An education is great but it’s damn hard to get an education while homeless, so basic needs get met first. That’s simple human psychology. I would love to introduce the doochnozzle to Maslov’s pyramid, but since he already has a college education I am sure he knows about it.

So he’s a young single white dude with an education. And he’s healthy, in no small part due to the fact that he probably had things like health care and good dental work up until he decided playing at poverty was a solid plan. Do you know how many days of work I have missed because of an abscessed tooth? More than a week. If I had dental coverage I could get it root canaled and crowned, or even just pulled. But I don’t have it. And neither do most people in poverty.

And let’s not forget, it’s not like he’s really poor. He had a credit card with him for emergencies. He had a way out of awful anytime he chose. He could quit a job if his boss was a dick. Some of us don’t have that option, especially poor women who are sexually harassed (oh that’s another one I have experience with multiple time over). And if worse came to worse, say if he didn’t have the money to pay his car insurance and it lapsed and he got pulled over and arrested for it, well he still has Mom and Dad and his credit card to bail him out.

Poverty means there is no out. There is no back up plan, there is no benevolent savior, there is no way to save for a rainy day when you’re $300 in the hole every month for just basic living expenses. Poverty is awful because it is finite for the individual in it. The myth of the bootstrap is just that. The tokens of exceptionalism that are occasionally trotted out in front of us are no different from the Catholic church telling feudal peasants that if they were good they’d get rewarded in heaven. Poverty is not an individual disease, it is a cancer on the society that creates it. Only massive changes to that society will cure it.

So Mr. Doochnozzle, you start out with a shit ton of privilege and you end with no real knowledge of what poverty looks like.

Thanks for once again shafting the poor in a rush to agree with the preznit. (Even more details here)

Thanks to a temp job last summer, our income for the year is at a whole whopping 69 percent of the poverty level. Who Hoo! Last year is was less than half the poverty level for 2 people, so I guess this is a step up.

People who make up to 130 percent of the poverty level are usually eligible for food stamps. You would think that anyone under the poverty level would just be eligible for the whole amount. It’s not like we can go spend food stamp money on beer and cigarettes or even toilet paper, it only pays for food.

So I am about 5000 dollars a year below the poverty line, or I am 416 dollars short every month of what the government says I need just to sustain basic life quality. They could just give that amount to me in food stamps. We could certainly use it and with some extra money we’d try these organics and whole grains everyone keeps talking about :).

But we don’t get that much.

Actually, for a family of 2 the maximum amount of food stamps we could get per month is 278. that would be nice, it might actually cover almost a months worth of groceries if we eat nothing but crap.

But we don’t get that much either.

We get 228 per month. It lasts about 2 weeks if we eat things like fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean meats, nothing organic or expensive, just healthy. It lasts about 3 weeks if we eat processed crap and hamburger. The price of milk is over 4 bucks a gallon here most of the time, so things like cereal have become a luxury. While food prices rise with the cost of gasoline, food stamp allotments have remained stagnant.

I had a few hopes in the last week or so that the Dems were really going to stick to it and get help for the poor (since we are the first and last victims of recession, we see it coming way before anyone else and we feel it’s effects much longer) while getting a boost for the economy.

But nah. I guess it’s really easy to throw hungry children under the bus in the name of cooperation and bipartisanship. Nice work Nancy. When milk hits 5 bucks a gallon I’m telling my kid that you’re the reason a box of cereal is now as much of a rarity as lobster in our house. I hope the next time you bring a bite of either to you lips, you choke on it you disingenuous fuck wad.

I’m trying to get it into me to write something funny or snarky or angry or bitter. But I’ve got a case of the well rested ho hums and the only thing really bugging me at the moment is a pimple on my lip that looks like a cold sore.

We still have no power, and judging by the lava flow slowness of the grant people, we may not have any all weekend. Which means that you may not hear from me again until Monday afternoon when I am back at work.

But it hasn’t been too bad. It has been cold as fuck, and all I want right now is a piping hot dinner and long hot bath followed by hours of mindless tv wrapped up in an electric blanket. Instead, we’re doing urban poverty camping. Hurrah! At least we have indoor toilets.

I have found that not having power has quickly fixed some of my serious insomnia problems. Last night I did my normal wake up at 1:30am for no good reason at all. For weeks this has been my “regular” wake up time and I didn’t go back to sleep after. But last night, having nothing to distract me (like checking my email or bad infomercials) I just rolled over and went back to sleep, only to wake up again at the much more reasonable 5:30. Maybe this power out thing is a better cure for winter blues insomnia than an expensive SAD lamp and a pile of happy pills. I’m not willing to spend the rest of the winter in dark to find out, but it is interesting to think about.

So I am being as zen as possible about the whole ordeal. And I am catching up on some reading. And spending quality time with the Kid using his cell phone as a music player (it has surprisingly loud speakers for a small hunk of plastic).

After last month’s thrilling rent problem and subsequent suckiest Christmas ever, I thought I would have a short reprieve from major drama, at least until my tax return comes in next month.

But no such luck.

Monday night I came home to a lovely notice on my door that the electricity will be shut off sometime today. I spent yesterday in a room full of shocked people who got the same notice. Everyone in the room with me either had small kids or was elderly or pregnant. We were waiting to find out about a grant to keep our heat on.

So I will get a grant, almost enough to keep the power on, but it takes them at least 48 hours to process it. Once I get that grant, there is another I can get (but only AFTER the first one is processed) that will cover the rest.

So I call the power company to tell them money is on the way, can they please give me the 48 hours to get the grant taken care of.

Nope. And I know that for all those desperate moms and grannies that were sitting in that room with me yesterday, it’s a nope to. We’re all going to be without heat and electricity in the middle of January. I’m waiting for the shut off any minute. In the mean time I’ve made sure that all the dishes are done, the fridge is cleaned out, the laundry is done and the heaters are jacked up so that we can retain as much heat as possible when it goes out. It’s only temporary, and mostly it means cold sammies, cold showers, no tv or computer and sleeping with many blanket for a few days. But damn, it’s January.

Now I understand, we need to pay our bills, etc. What I don’t understand is why the we only get 24 hours notice, when the power company KNOWS that the only place in town that offers federal grants for heating assistance takes at least 48 hours to process the applications? It doesn’t cost the power company any extra to send the notice out a day or two earlier, so what gives?

My electric bill alone is 34% of my income. We don’t have ac. We use compact florescent bulbs.

My phone and internet is 24%

My rent is 38%

That leaves 4% of my income for food, clothing, transportation, etc.

No wonder I’m so fricken broke.

So I spent last night taking the big memory card for my phone, converting it to work on the Kid’s phone and loading it up with mountains of music he can shake his tale feather too. I made sure he has The Sun is a MAss by TMBGs, and a bunch of the GoGos and the Donnas and Franz Ferdinand. And Keane. The Kid looks like a junior version of Keane’s lead singer and he can sing just like him too.

So then I stole the Kid’s phone, replaced his memory card and loaded up a silly picture of the two of us from a happier Christmas as his new wallpaper. That was all I could do for him.

He was happy-ish. He was glad to have all the music, but a week or two ago the Kid dumped his headphones on milk. So he can’t listen to the music. I didn’t know this (of course, headphones have not been a priority).

So I spent a good chunk of the night working on a present he can’t actually use. Sweet. Broke and useless.

Good news on the homefront. Our rent is being paid and we will, in fact have a home for Christmas.

I guess this means I need to put up the tree.

I think this also means I need t find a way to get the Kid a Christmas present with exactly zero dollars and no cents (or sense- take your pick).

But first I am going to take the world’s longest nap, the first nap I’ve had in a while where I am sure that it won’t be my last nap in my own house.