06/27/00

"...if I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap places..."

This morning I snapped. 

I couldn't help it.  I've been reading this one particular diaryland journal, written by some angst-ridden brat fresh out of high school.  I don't know why I read it.  The girl absolutely makes me crazy.  Some of the things she writes really make me want to choke the first little twit I see in Westport wearing a hippie dress and Birkenstocks (with socks--of course).  I don't know why I continue to read her when she pisses me off so...  I guess for the same reason Megan is obsessed with Dr. Laura, Fred "Dickhead" Phelps is obsessed with fags, and the Nation of Islam is obsessed with the "white devil"--we LOVE to pay a lot of attention to the things we hate.  A LOT of attention.  It's human nature.  If we didn't do this, there would be nothing to bitch about, and what kind of planet would THAT be?

Anyway, I had just had my absolute fill of this spoiled little rich bitch ranting and raving about her poor, deep, intellectual "nobody understands me" life in the lap of her rich parents' luxury.  "Mumsy and Papa are laying expensive new flooring in the house and therefore, they must put me up at a hotel."  Okay, the living room of my parents' house had GREEN SHAG CARPET that smelled like mildew and piss right up until the time I moved out because my dad said he wasn't going to pay to lay new carpet that his children were just going to barf or spill something on.  And even if he had been so willing, you can bet your ass I wouldn't have been in a hotel, my sisters and I would have been crawling about on top of each other in a single twin bed. 

Am I jealous?  Yes.  Of course I am.  But is my jealousy the source of my anger?  HELL, NO.  The reason this little snotnose pisses me off to the extent that she does is because she considers herself so enlightened, so worldly, so special, so elite.  So "up" on the "working class." 

Honey, you don't know JACK SHIT about the working class.

When I was a kid, my Paw worked two, sometimes three jobs and went to various technical schools at night.  One of his part-time jobs involved auto repair at a gas station, which by the way, was the same gas station he worked for when he met my mom, who had lived across the street from said gas station.  My Paw, you see, was what us "working class" folk know as a GREASE MONKEY.  He fixed things.  TVs, microwaves, washing machines, radios, VCRs, if you could plug it into a wall and break it, my old man could fix it.  But rich folk don't care to spend a lot to have something fixed, so my Paw didn't make a lot of money.  I went to public school and was given "reduced price" lunches.  One year, we were soooo poor that I actually qualified for "free" lunches.  I can't imagine you daring to show your face at your grade school (let me guess, private?) after handing Lunch Lady Delores your "free" lunch card to have another hole punched in it.  Finally, my Paw landed a real good job--working for a cat food factory.  Yee-HAW!  He has worked there for the last 17 years.  He hates his job.  He has always hated his job.  But there was no one else there to support him, you see.  He had to support himself, and his wife, and his four kids.

I moved out when I was 17, just out of high school.  I was a mental mess, to be certain, and it was hard for me to hold down a job.  Which I had to do, you see, because when I was 16, my parents informed me that there would be no further handouts and that I would be working for my keep.  And I was now on my own.  And I had a serious liquor habit to support.  So I worked.  I waited tables.  I was a telemarketer.  I worked fast food.  I lost every job for one reason or another.  In December, I went completely nuts.  I had no money.  I couldn't really go back home.  So I lived in my 1978 Plymouth Horizon for about two or three weeks.  I would often sleep at a friend's house, grab a shower, maybe a package of ramen noodles if they had been grocery shopping.  I would go hang out in parking lots around drive-through windows late at night looking for dropped change, because Hardee's was selling 39 cent cheeseburgers then.  I LIVED on 39 cent cheeseburgers.  That's also about the time Taco Bell dropped all the prices on their menu in an effort to move more tacos, and I was in absolute heaven.  My mother finally asked me to move back home a week or so before Christmas.  I did, and moved out again in February.  Then back again in August, to go to school.  Then out again--for good--in January, when I moved to Omaha.  My Omaha adventure was pretty much more of the same...depression, anxiety, worthless boyfriends, lost jobs, shitty apartments, "potato diets" (where I could afford to eat nothing more than potatoes, which I could get 10 lbs for $1) and the like.  It wasn't until I met my ex-husband and he determined to "clean me up" that I was actually able to lead a somewhat normal life.

That's why I hate my ex-husband.  You remind me of him.  All you over-privileged little brats.  "My parents aren't rich."  Oh, really?  Does your dad wear a uniform to work, or a tie?  Does your mom drive a station wagon/mini van, or an SUV?  Do you eat steak and lobster for dinner, or fish sticks?  When you were 16, were you studying for the SAT or flipping burgers to pay for your clothes and car insurance?

Sweetheart, you don't know the working class.  I AM the working class.  And what separates us more than money, more than social class, more than age, is the fact that I CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING that comes my way.  I think you'd be hard-pressed to say the same, wouldn't you?

Damn, now I feel even better than I did when I wrote that nasty post to her guestbook.  In a way, I feel really rotten about that--I mean, I could have at least made it a private message.  Public humiliation is so juvenile and sadistic.  But I didn't want to appear that I was too pussy to actually speak my piece publicly, like I wasn't firm enough in my conviction to stand before the whole viewing public and say, "hey, I think this is fucked up."  And I am.  So in my self-serving egotism, I made the post public.  I doubt very much that she will be at all affected by it, anyway.  I'm sure it will bounce right off her well-groomed and well-bred little skull.

Another part of me feels bad for doling out to her what someone probably should have doled out to her parents.  Opinions like those don't just come from the drinking water or the air.  Maybe if her parents actually made her pay for her own education, among other things, she'd come to value them slightly more.

But then she'd become part of the "working class," and I'd have to deal with her on a daily basis in person.  Ugh.

Okay, I now have my Diet Pepsi and Famous Amos cookies...I can be happier now...

On to another drab and lifeless account of my pathetic working class life...

My Home Page

Message Board

Journal Entry Index

E-mail Me

But wait, there's more...