I'm really really poor right now. As in, I have about $50 to my name and currently no income. This is temporary, because I do have a job lined up, but it doesn't start until the middle of October, so I have a dicey few weeks of figuring out how to pay bills and buy food ahead of me. So I'm trying to sell some things to make enough money to tide me over. The other important thing to know is that I finally got rid of my essentially non-functional car last week (sold it for a measly $100, most of which is gone already--thanks a bunch, necessities), so I have to get to the DMV in Pawtucket (an awkward bus jaunt away) to turn in the plates. If I do it before the end of the month I can get a $30 refund on my only half-used two year registration. You can imagine how important that $30 is right now, so yes, I will do it before the end of the month.
So, selling things. The last episode of Battlestar Galactica was shitty enough that I pretty much don't ever want to watch the show ever again, and the season sets go for a decent amount of money on Amazon, so up they went. Someone bought Season 3 last night, so I have to mail it today (otherwise I have to wait until Monday, which is a delay in getting paid, and right now any delay is unacceptable).
The only post office in reasonable walking distance of my house is about ten or fifteen minutes away. It's on a college campus, so it has odd hours. I knew that it closed for forty-five minutes around lunchtime, and was thinking I remembered it being 12:15 to 1:00. I got kind of a slow start this morning (oops), so I was gonna leave my house at 11:00, mail the DVDs, pick up the 11:30ish bus from the college to downtown, and then connect to the Pawtucket bus to get to the DMV by around 12:30, plenty of time to take care of things by the time they close at 3:15.
But nope! As I was getting my things together to leave I thought to double-check the hours at the post office, and ha ha ha! It's closed from 11:15 to 12. I discover this at five past eleven, just exactly the right time for it to be too late. I'm a fucking idiot. So now I have to wait until 12 to mail the thing. But if I do that, because of the complications of coordinating two bus schedules and the intermittence of service to Pawtucket, it'll mean I can't get to the DMV until really uncomfortably close to the time they close, i.e. close enough that if there's a delay on the bus I'll get there too late and will have wasted $4.50 round trip ($1.75 to get downtown, $0.50 to transfer, and then the same fares to get back), which I can't risk doing. Which means I'll have to go Monday. God frickin' dammit.
I also wanted to change my address while I was there (my license still has my address from two moves ago, don't tell anyone), but there's a $6.50 fee to do that, which means I have to choose between spending money I can't really afford to be spending right now, and wasting an entire additional day of my life to do it later. Thanks, DMV!
I say all this as a demonstration of how, when you're poor, everything is harder, more time-consuming, and more expensive than when you're not. I don't say this to whine about my situation--I have a hell of a lot more resources than most actually poor people. I have an amazing roommate/best friend who is more financially stable than me at the moment and is willing to help out with the rent for next month until I can pay it back. I have fairly stable (though struggling) parents I could fall back on if all else failed. I have the knowledge that it'll be over soon, when that job starts. But right now I'm poor. And as a result tasks that would take a less-poor person a few hours fill up entire days. Small amounts of money ($4.50 bus fares, $6.50 DMV fees) become insurmountable obstacles. I can't even imagine how difficult this situation would be if I was currently working poor--I'd probably have to take whole days off of work, most likely unpaid (and possibly putting my continued employment in jeopardy), to get to the DMV (open Monday through Friday, 8:30-3:15) at all.
And this is just one unusual task--consider routine things like getting to the grocery store (easy for me because it's in OK walking distance and because the aforementioned roommate-friend has a car and goes once a week, so I can tag along) or doing laundry (I have machines in the house, thank god). All of these things take up enormous chunks of time, and time is extremely valuable. During that time you could be working (in which case that time is a direct expense) or if not, you could be taking a few precious moments to fucking relax. Instead, it's just more hours of time whose use is not dictated by you. More hours of slavery.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Great post, sir. Thanks!
Wait, really? Thanks!
Love your stuff, too. Pretty much every day I say "ladypoverty is so smart." Ask my roommate.
Well, that's nice of you to say -- and your roommate to tolerate!
I liked your post because it was honest -- and it's also a subject that interests me! But few people write about the matrix of the mundane or how it envelops our lives. I enjoyed your take on it very much.
Also, your most recent comment @ ladypoverty was priceless. I think the trick is to look at all media with a critical eye; then you can take some satisfaction out of even the very worst.
Keep on keeping on!
Hah, you think it's honest, but really it was all lies! Hint: my last name is really Warbucks.
For real, though. I like the phrase "matrix of the mundane"--is this something I should know (maybe a dead white man came up with it?) or did you just make it up?
As for casting a critical eye on the media, absolutely--I just get so overwhelmed. Any time I try to write something like your media criticism posts, I get so tangled up that I don't even realize I'm succumbing to one form of brainwashing while combating another, and I end up making a string of updates, and it's just a big mess. So, good job, and keep it up, and all.
I thought of that expression while reflecting on your post. It might even be serviceable! In any event, I've always thought relationships under capitalism lent themselves to a "matrix"-type metaphor, owing to the fact that their political significance is masked by the "ordinary routine" of everyday life. This was something Marx was particularly interested in exposing.
For criticism, it's important to pursue whatever interests you most. In my case, I spent about 3 years reading the Financial Times daily before I thought to resume my blog in its current form. So, it's not like the shit just came naturally; if you study anything intensively for long enough you'll have something to say about it eventually!
The trick is to find something you enjoy enough that your inevitable short-term frustrations -- and they are inevitable -- won't overwhelm your inevitable long-term accomplishments. The frustrations can be taken for granted, but the accomplishments can't: you have to insist on them no matter what.
Post a Comment