Poverty can be kewl, I suppose, if you choose it, like Thoreau did, or Diogenes the Cynic (the original). But it sux when it’s your only option.
Poverty sucks because every illness will result in an entire day at a free clinic in a bad neighborhood. It sucks because your kids can not understand why things change. It sucks because the rising costs of food and energy will eventually result in shut offs and poor nutrition, It sucks because the endless pressure will eventually damage your health and psyche.
[QUOTE=wheresgeorge04]
Are you fucking serious? What could that snatch had possibly said that made any sense, once you stated that were allergic to tomatoes? Did she not believe yo?
[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, some food pantry workers feel that you’re supposed to demonstrate undying gratitude for whatever food items they deign to hand you, and anything less than fulsome praise coupled with a bit of bowing and scraping is grounds for a “why, those ungrateful creatures!” snit.
Also, to the Lady Of The Manor graciously giving up an hour of her Monday afternoon to distribute largesse to the Deserving Poor, people who need to come to a food pantry aren’t supposed to be allergic to foods, they’re supposed to eat what’s on their plate dammit.
[QUOTE=cowgirl]
It sucks because of the prevailing attitude that we all succeed or fail on our own merits, so if you’re poor it’s because you DESERVE to be poor. So whenever you try to bitch about it, people are patronizing or mean or insulting or otherwise completely unsympathetic.
[/QUOTE]
Preach it. It also sucks because if you do have clinical depression, and you stop taking meds because you don’t have health insurance and can’t afford them any more, then you feel like you deserve to be poor and have a shitty life and everyone agrees with you.
[QUOTE=Duck Duck Goose]
Unfortunately, some food pantry workers feel that you’re supposed to demonstrate undying gratitude for whatever food items they deign to hand you, and anything less than fulsome praise coupled with a bit of bowing and scraping is grounds for a “why, those ungrateful creatures!” snit.
Also, to the Lady Of The Manor graciously giving up an hour of her Monday afternoon to distribute largesse to the Deserving Poor, people who need to come to a food pantry aren’t supposed to be allergic to foods, they’re supposed to eat what’s on their plate dammit.
[/QUOTE]
^ What he said.
Want to know one of my biggest fears right now? Breaking one of my pairs of glasses. Thank Og I have a pair and a spare this time through the Poverty Tunnel, but due to my vision issues a new pair of lenses costs around $400 for me. Without them I can’t see to read, much less drive or work. God, WHAT a disaster that would be!
So far so good, though. (knocking furiously on wood)
Poverty sucks because people assume you’re poor because you made bad choices. Nobody looks at someone who’s well off and questions the choices they made.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
No problem, jayjay. We can’t always agree. I still think you’re forty kinds of cool. 
I think I did exactly what the OP said to do. I bitched about poverty as I have experienced it. If that’s threadshitting, then oh well.
[/QUOTE]
You’re a shameless, pathetic, attention whore. If you want to cry about how you had it rough once, make your own thread. While I don’t have any real feelings one way or the other about the OP’s situation, to come in here and try and one up him by talking about how hard you had it is ridiculous. It’s clearly attention whoring, and makes you extremely pathetic.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
When I lived in a three room shack with twelve cousins, it was right here in the good ol’ US of A. I also don’t think minimizing the real poverty of people who can’t even afford computers or Internet access, and live a hundred miles from a library, just because you can’t relate is dismissive to the extreme. Frankly, one of the things that sucks most about poverty is hearing people better off than you complain about how bad off they are.
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“You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t’ mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi’ his belt.”
On preview: Crap! Beaten by BrainGlutton!
But the OP says this:
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
Please, anyone else who is currently undergoing poverty, or has had unwanted poverty thrust upon them in the past, feel free to contribute.
[/QUOTE]
(my bolding).
She says go ahead and bitch about any “unwanted poverty thrust upon them”. I don’t understand why that makes Liberal’s post threadshitting. 
I personally was gonna say that poverty sucks when you’re pregnant yet have to chop wood for the wood heater (only source of heat) but maybe I shouldn’t.
Poverty Sucks Because - a homeless shelter is no place for someone who was raised to not let food go to waste.
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
Want to know one of my biggest fears right now? Breaking one of my pairs of glasses. Thank Og I have a pair and a spare this time through the Poverty Tunnel, but due to my vision issues a new pair of lenses costs around $400 for me. Without them I can’t see to read, much less drive or work. God, WHAT a disaster that would be!
[/QUOTE]
Our income is still a little higher than our outgo so we can afford the necessities and maybe have a little extra to keep in the bank. We also have credit cards that can be used in extreme emergencies but I’d rather pay them off.
I broke a supposedly unbreakable pair of glasses about a year ago and have been wearing my sunglasses ever since, being very careful with them. The only other pair I have right now are so scratched up that it’s like looking through fog. Friday I’m going to stop by the eyeglass shop that my insurance covers and see about spending part of my tax refund on a new pair, hopefully they’re still running a sale.
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
Poverty Sucks Because - there’s always some asshole who will quip something along the lines of “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why can’t you just go out and get a job?” Because it is possible to look for a job and not find one for quite some time.
[/QUOTE]
And the longer you go, the harder it gets.
I tell ya, the big 4 year blank spot in my resume (2 years of no luck, followed by 2 years of constant respiratory infections making it impossible to look, or work if I somehow found anything) is certainly appealing. sigh
[QUOTE=NinetyWt]
But the OP says this:
(my bolding).
She says go ahead and bitch about any “unwanted poverty thrust upon them”. I don’t understand why that makes Liberal’s post threadshitting.
I personally was gonna say that poverty sucks when you’re pregnant yet have to chop wood for the wood heater (only source of heat) but maybe I shouldn’t.
[/QUOTE]
I think the thread shitting occured when I was criticized for saying that knowing someone else has it worse doesn’t ease one’s own suffering, and then being told just how hard *he * had it. The point of Liberal’s post seemed to be not to tell us what he’s been through (he’d already done that several posts earlier) but to castigate me for not caring sufficiently about other people’s poverty.
[QUOTE=WOOKINPANUB]
I think the thread shitting occured when I was criticized for saying that knowing someone else has it worse doesn’t ease one’s own suffering, and then being told just how hard *he * had it. The point of Liberal’s post seemed to be not to tell us what he’s been through (he’d already done that several posts earlier) but to castigate me for not caring sufficiently about other people’s poverty.
[/QUOTE]
Oooooohhhhhhhh. Thanks.
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
You’re a shameless, pathetic, attention whore. If you want to cry about how you had it rough once, make your own thread. While I don’t have any real feelings one way or the other about the OP’s situation, to come in here and try and one up him by talking about how hard you had it is ridiculous. It’s clearly attention whoring, and makes you extremely pathetic.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I think I was wrong. Having gone back and read through the sequence of events a couple of times, I accused Lib of threadshitting because I thought he was, in his second post, criticizing the OP (with the comments about the computer and the distance from the library, etc) but he was actually criticizing Wookinpanub. If he’d been dropping that in the thread in direct response to the OP, then yes, it would be TS. But it wasn’t directed at the OP, and on reading it again, I don’t think he was one-upping, as the OP did ask people to list their own problems with poverty.
So…I was wrong. I apologize to you, Liberal. I need to go back and take remedial reading comprehension…
[QUOTE=Zebra]
Preach it. It also sucks because if you do have clinical depression, and you stop taking meds because you don’t have health insurance and can’t afford them any more, then you feel like you deserve to be poor and have a shitty life and everyone agrees with you.
[/QUOTE]
And poverty begets deeper depression and depression begets staying poor for lack of will to change it. It’s a vicious cycle in which relief becomes an illusion. The hopelessness, the shame, the guilt, the lack of alternatives, and the prevailing misery all conspires to keep you down.
Sending extra-special-lucky-finance vibes your way Broomstick!
[QUOTE=jayjay]
So…I was wrong. I apologize to you, Liberal. I need to go back and take remedial reading comprehension…
[/QUOTE]
Okay, so now you’re forty-one kinds of cool! 
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
Poverty Sucks Because - a lot of people really don’t understand that no, you do NOT have $20 (or whatever) to do XYZ because you really do have to spend that on groceries or whatever. Yes, you may actually possess a $20 bill at the moment but that doesn’t mean you are free to spend it however you like (assuming you’re at all responsible).
[/QUOTE]
Do people really do stuff like this? Man, people suck. I’ve never come across this before and I’ve told people plenty of times that I can’t afford whatever. I must hang out with equally-broke people.
You should tell them that doing stuff like they’re saying is how people with money end up broke and they’ll see someday. Then raise your eyebrows all knowing-like.
Bitches.
[QUOTE=jayjay]
But it wasn’t directed at the OP, and on reading it again, I don’t think he was one-upping, as the OP did ask people to list their own problems with poverty.
[/QUOTE]
Does this mean I’m not stupid after all???