Friday, December 17, 2004

Isn't It Great To Be Poor At This Time of The Year

When your poor at this time of the year you don't have to contend with the Christmas mad marathon of buying gifts for everyone cause you just don't have the money to spare. This is the one time of the year that the upper and middle class people get to stand on equal grounds with us poor folks. In line up after line up and complain about how much money we have to spend just to make it through the holidays and how little time they have to get Christmas presents all wrapped before going out for a Christmas Treat called dinner and a drink. You should be great full that they are taking the time out of there busy schedule so that you can have more time to stand in another line called the Christmas hamper (aka food bank)line.
Isn’t it great to be poor at this time year. After all we repep from the benefits of other people buying, cooking and sufferings too. The suffering that we all share are the tire sore aching feet, and empty wallets.
While we impoverish are well experienced at standing in multiple lines waiting for doctor's appointments, employment insurance or income assistance cheques or our daily dinner that was left over from some else dinner the day before. Maybe we could earn a little extra cash giving lessons on how to wait or what to do while in line so we could help ourselves and buy gifts for our own families.
Sometimes if we are one of the lucky ones, people will buy presents for our children but not yourself because remember your an adult now and few if any care about your emotional spirits. Society seems to think that the smiles of any child worth a million dollars. Isn’t that good enough for everyone. You should be even more happier knowing that your children are gleefully unwrapping the presents that that others bought for them on your behalf.
After all you are one of their most valuable assets because they get to do the right thing and write you off as a recipient of their good charity and declare it as a income tax deduction. Is being a recipient of one of these gifts a replacement for the guaranteed livable income that today’s income assistant was suppose to be?
I know that this time of the year is very hard on a lot of people because they don't have what main stream society calls a family, a place to call home, and the stocking that we fill is usually with our own feet instead of sugar cane and other goodies or money to buy gifts for our children who have been usually apprehend by the government.
On a happier note we as poor people have one up on them we don't have to deal with a large credit card debt at the end of the year and some how we all know how to survive for more then two weeks without a cheque cause most of us have to survive for as long as five weeks without any income right after Christmas.
Most people have given up asking me what my family is doing for Christmas because they are tired of hearing the same blah blah blah answers but for me and my family this is the reality at this time of the year. For those who dare to ask me what I want for Christmas I tell them I All I want for Christmas is a job, the tools need to maintain a job and a bed to sleep on. A job that will offer me and my family some income so that I can get my grade twelve English and work family's way out of poverty. I want is a hand up not a hand out and not to be exploited because of my poverty. I want to be a success.
On this note I would like to wish everyone a safe journey throughout the holidays.

1 comment:

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