Oh, when I was a kid we did all sorts of stuff to save money. My mom is an accomplished ‘dumpster diver’ and would get us all sorts of stuff. I still remember the first time I had a fresh donut not out of a garbage bag (culled from the bakery dumpster). It was strange.
But this is my favorite: Before school started we would erase all our homework from the last school year. That way we could use the paper again.
Even thought I’m in college now and a ‘starving student’ I haven’t sunk that low.
We were so poor, we couldn’t afford to spend the night! <rimshot>
milroyj, put a sock in it. Or, share with us your incredible insights on how you survived abject poverty and yet remained, at all times, fully law-abiding.
A lifetime ago I lived in a BIG city and spent summers with my grand ma in a small town in the mid-west. No running water and no plumbing. Set a wash tub out in the sun to heat water for the Saturday night bath. The ‘little brown shack’ out back was equipped with a Sears Roebuck catalog. When the catalog was nothing but spine you had to resort to corncobs: dry, hard, and ROUGH!
Reminds me of James Whitcomb Riley’s “The Old Outhouse.” It was copied and passed around from time to time under that title. If it wasn’t his work it was and has been attributed to him. Ask at the library reference desk for “Outhouse Humor” by Billy Edd Wheeler, 1988. Pub. August House, ISBN0-87483-058-3. Refer to Chapter 3, pg. 31, titled as “The Passing of the Backhouse” by James Whitcomb Riley
It’s called personal responsibility. Get a job. Don’t have kids you can’t take care of. Don’t steal.
Are you really suggesting that it’s ok to steal in some situations? The people you are stealing from would beg to differ.
Are you suggesting that high school students have the legal or moral obligation to support themselves? Children and Family Services would beg to differ.
Or are you perhaps suggesting that it’s immoral to attend an art gallery opening for any other reason than art appreciation? (Or in addition to art appreciation, for that matter?)
Have you ever considered the possibility that people sometimes have kids who they are able to take care of at the time they are conceived and/or born, but that their circumstances change?
I think you’d change your tune very quickly if you were ever really hungry.
Amazing. Over 1500 posts, and you still can’t differenciate between an IMHO thread and a BBQ Pit thread? Please try to confine any posts which consist of nothing but petty sniping to the Pit from now on.
With a great deal of hesitancy, yes, I am suggesting that. Les Miserables was based around that idea. And lawmakers in Venezuela are considering de-criminalizing the theft of food by the hungry. And I think that repeatedly popping into a thread to make sarcastic comments about the choices people made when they were hungry children or desperate adults is out of line.
Moreover, your suggestions that people simply “get a job” or “don’t have kids they can’t take care of” manage to be sensible and ludicrous at the same time. Do you really think that people’s financial situations are static? Does that the fact that I am comfortable now and could afford to raise kids in my current job, with my spouse in his current job, mean that I will forever be able to afford children? My parents were doing very well and had us three kids. Then their situation changed. Dad lost his job. Mom had to go back to work. Dad started a business that failed. Then he started another one and his business partner decided to run off to Germany with all the money afer seven years of partnership. The savings ran out. Shit happens.
And though we never stole anything, I have come quite close to walking that line, especially in college.
Anyway, though stealing is never the morally upright choice, it can be understandable, even if you find it inexcusable. If it bothers you that much, start a Great Debate about it. But shitting all over the choices people have made that they are CLEARLY not proud of in this thread is in bad form on your part.
Anyone who brings a child into the world has a moral obligation to support said child.
Notice, I didn’t say anything about people scamming free cheese from art galleries.
Oh sure, I’ve considered it. So why do people who can’t afford the kids they have, have more kids?
But for the grace of God go I. Still, stealing is pretty warped, and it ticks me off to see people practically bragging about it.
Then why are you criticizing the child? And how do you know what her mom and/or dad (although I’ve never seen even sven mention her dad) did to try to support her child? You don’t. So then why the hell are you discussing anyone’s morals, or lack thereof? You don’t know squat about the situation, so how dare you pass judgment on complete strangers?
even sven hasn’t said anything about her mom having more kids she couldn’t afford to support in this thread, either here or as far as I know anywhere else on this board. And even if her mom was pumping them out once every nine months, how is that her fault? Did you get to choose your parents? If you want to bitch about people who leech off the system, you know where you can go to do it.
How the hell do you figure she is bragging?
All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not related to you. (At least as far as I know.)
I use to go to Burger King/Macdonalds/etc… and order a meal. Promptly eat half of it and then return it for a refund saying it didn’t taste right. If anything, they would give you another one so you got 2 for one and could save it for later. Use to do that alot with pizzas when we were smaller.
Learned this trick from my mother, who would go grocery shopping, use half the item (stovetop, spagehtti, groundbeef) then return it for a refund or another one. Of course it was wrong, but that was how we had to survive. At the age of 8, my father ( and I use that term very loosely) decided he didn’t want to a dad anymore and ran off. Leaving my mother, with no education, no job, no family, to take of 3 children under the age of 9.
We were so poor, we didn’t turn on the heat in the winter unless it was absolutely below zero and in danger of dying. I still have vivid memories of waking up in the morning and seeing my breathe.
Christ, milroyj, give it a rest. I’m mighty big into personal responsibility myself, likely as much or moreso than you. But come on. The only things you’ve specifically complained about are:
Stealing crackers from a bin at a restaurant
Stealing toilet paper from a bathroom
Stealing a piece of candy from a store
Heck, I don’t even consider the first two stealing at all, as they’re offered for free by the establishment. Yes, stealing the candy is wrong, but it’s a nickel or less, and believe it or not, crime is not a yes or no thing; there are varying degrees of criminality. It’s hard to get further down the criminality totem pole than stealing penny candy.
All that aside, you made your point in your first post. No need to clog up the thread with this.
Oh, and throwing in the “get a job” bit was hijack on top of hijack.
This isn’t normal? I’m a spendthrift and I do this! :eek:
Obviously milroyj needs to steal himself a sense of humor, or a personality.
No, none of use chose to be poor, moron, I choose to be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Unfortunately, my middle class parents got divorced when I was six, and I (lucky kid that I was) got to live with my very hard working, poverty level mother.
I developed a sense of humor to deal with my life. Unlike you.
Stealing was something I did until I learned better, until I COULD get a job, I stole frozen french fries out of the back of the hot dog stand and took them home. Am I proud of that? NO, but I did it, and I’d do it again, if I had to feed my family.
Some people just sit on their high horse and never look down, until they fall there. Keep holding your breath milroyj, your luck may change one day, and then the world will spank you like you spank others… my sympathies.
I would really appreciate it if y’all would just knock it off, please, and get back to the subject at hand. If you have complaints about a poster, please use the bitch button.
Thank you.
I saw this a lot when I worked at McDonald’s. Also there were people who would root through the garbage for a cup, then come up for their free refill. Of course, no one was fooled, but what are you gonna do, deny a hungry person in the name of the evil clown?
When I was a kid, we used to have a meal called Soup Over Bread. Recipe: 1/3 can of soup poured over a slice of bread. I liked it fine, and once asked my mother why we never had it anymore. She got a shocked look on her face and blurted, “Because I can afford to feed you now!”
Not so long ago, I had a great job, with GREAT wages! Then, the company had a lay-off. I rode the unemployment while I looked for a comparable job. Fifteen months later, with prospects looking dire indeed, I took a job as a “route sales representative” with a regional bakery.
This job netted me around $900 a month, and with my $400 mortgage, $400 car payment, and various utilities, gas, etc, I had zippo left over. The other vendors (soda, candy, chips) would leave me snacks in my truck. I was dumpster-diving to retrieve cookies, chips, whatever. I would buy a 79 cent 2-liter to drink for 2 days. Lucky me when they were on sale 2 for a dollar!
This was in 1999, and I was 35 years old. I lost over 30 pounds while I worked that job for 17 months. I finally quit to work at Walmart (gag!).
Now, I’m back at the outfit that laid me off, and I just want to say Yah Never Know When It’s Gonna Bite YOU!