We were so poor, even my dollhouse was a slum.
WWSP, the collection plate at church said “Give to the [ourname] family”.
WWSP, we had one pair of shoes for five kids*. Only one of us could go to school at a time.
WWSP, we reheated TV dinners.
WWSP, we had to go the bus station to watch TV.
WWSP, we had one day a week when we could use electricity.
WWSP, my graduation dinner was at A&W.
*No, I don’t have four siblings.
We were so poor…
we got CARE packages from Cambodia
for Christmas we got boxes of batteries that said “Toy Not Included” (and the batteries were dead)
my imaginary friend died of malnutrition
we counted ‘imagination’ as a food group
we grew up in a trailer park- without a trailer
homeless people used to cry when they saw us
our toilet tissue all said “WatchTower”
we watched GOOD TIMES and thought “someday… God willing… that’ll be us”
our dog was really an Earthworm
we thought electricity was an urban legend
we redecorated our home with a boxcutter and a can of spray paint
Mother Teresa came to visit and said “Screw Calcutta…I’m needed here”
we parked the house in the car
my uncle was put into a tiger cage by the VietCong and got the first decent night’s sleep of his life
the highlight of Christmas was carving the Vienna sausage
our next door neighbors used to tell us about their days on DIFF’RENT STROKES
(Of course the “yo Mama” joke that comes to mind is “Yo Mama so po I saw her kicking a can down the street and said ‘Hey Ms. Washington, whatcha doin’?” and she said “Movin’.”)
My favorite is still this one.
My parents always gave something to wear and something to play with for Christmas. One year, WWSP, I got a pair of used blue jeans with holes in the pockets.
I was so poor, I had to buy a milkshake on lay-away.
Sadly, this is true: Mr. S’s family was so poor, people on welfare used to give THEM stuff. (His dad was too proud to go on welfare; they would have been better off if he had.)
Their house was so cold in the winter that one night his uncle’s boots froze to the floor.
WWSP I couldn’t affor the Straight Dope Message Board subscr
My dad used to say,
WWSP, we spelled it with three O’s. (I nominate that for the lamest)
Also, whenever we’d be sitting around a pool or having lobster or something, some family member would say, “I wonder what the poor people are doing.”
Someone else would always say, “whatever it is, its too damn good for 'em.”
Hm. I always thought that was supposed to be said in irony. Like if you’re siphoning gas between two vehicles so each of you has enough to get to work (true story). “Gee, I wonder what the poor people are doing.”
You’d think so.
In my family, pretention was considered one of the deadly sins, so it was always said with full recognition of the complete ASSHOLIA that it conveyed.
My grandfather used this line oten:
WWSP, if they were selling mules for a nickle all I could do would be jump up and down screaming “Ain’t that cheap!”.
An oldie: “We was so broke we couldn’t even pay attention.”
I have always loved the Monty Python 4 Yorkshire men sketch:
“We used to have to get up in the morning at 10 O’Clock at night, half an hour before we went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours a day down at the mill, and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we we got home our parents would kill us and dance about on our graves singing allelujia.”
we would cut pictures of meat out of magazines and put them on bread
we thought shoes were made with holes in the soles
the family car was a kids wagon
we shopped the curbs during spring clean up
my first bicycle didn’t have wheels
our big dog weighed 8 pounds
collecting 30 cents on a six pack of returned pop bottles was like winning the lottery
the mice would bring us cheese
The old folks from my family used to say
“so po’ if money was a skunk squirt a hound couldn’t smell us”
“the bread is sliced so thin that it ain’t got but one side…”
WWSP that:
we abbrvd AMA pssbl 2 sav prntr ink
dog food: people food too
cardboard: also people food
we saved especially interesting pieces of lint and exchanged them with family members on holidays. sometimes we even saved not so interesting pieces of lint for the same purpose.
penny candy? are you out of your mind??! we couldn’t afford that extravagence!
we aspired to live in an Amana refrigerator box one day.
no electricity, no running water, no gas, no heat, not even any air
homeless guy on the corner gave us money
there were the lean years, the really lean years, and the really really lean years.
took chances with the suffication hazard presented by plastic bags cause they were the only toys we could afford for the kids