I am crazy poor. As in, I’m “crazy”, so I’m poor; I’m on disability and food stamps and medicare and all that. I get excited about stuff like toilet paper, and tin foil, and a new Brita filter. I actually just bought tissues and feel like insanely lucky and extravagant and like a fucking queen. Every month I steal my mom's insider CVS money where if you're rich you pay $5 to CVS and get a $10 credit there. Do you know how much money $10 is when you have NOTHING? Like, so, so much. Talk to me about toilet paper, baby. The other day I came upon a pop-up thrift shop event done by Southern Fried Gay Pride where you fill up a brown, paper bag with stuff fabulous queens don’t want and pay $5. I was f-ing thrilled. I got like 7 new books, a bunch of DVDs, and several clothing items. I also got a single glass plate (!), a pirate hat, and a beer koozie that says Block Dog for my sister, because when we were little we listened to a song by that name.
I get $914 from the government for being unemployably insane
on the first of every month, which is the max amount I can get for never really
having worked at all. Pretty much all that goes to bills. My car payment is
$269, my house bills are about $200, and the rest goes to pay my credit cards.
If I can buy lotion or contact solution or aspirin after all that, I call it a
win for that month. I get books from the library, I charge my gas, and
if I can pay my cell phone bill for my trap phone, I feel like I’m killing it. Ok, so I wrote this a while ago and can no longer actually afford a trap phone; I gots a free piece of shit from the government that doesn't even try to do internet...
I don’t pay for food at all. My eyes are like, trained for
signs that say “free food” or “food pantry”. Once a month I pick up whatever
they give me at the Lawrenceville Co-op and once a week I go to Old Fountain
Church and get to pick out food (!). I have to wait like 3 hours in my
car in line, but the ladies are really nice, they pray for whatever I ask them
to, and that much static time set aside each Monday can be useful. On the 21st
I get like $160 in food stamps and I get all excited to buy fresh vegetables
and cheese or even strawberries! Oh, boy!!
I have no subscriptions because I don’t have the internet.
Really, I have no reoccurring charges at all. If I want to get online to pay
bills or check my email or pretend to buy things, I go to the library, which
isn’t open on holidays or Sundays (uh, why???). Did you know you can actually
access Instagram on the web-browser-internet? I didddd! So, I never stream things,
I hardly ever watch YouTube videos, and if I ever listen to music, it feels
pretty special.
I put up with all the internet ads, I read magazines in the
store, and I know where all those take-a-book mailbox-libraries are. I watch
DVDs at home on my tv for “entertainment” and they’re all pretty scratched at
this point. If I ever get dinner or lunch with someone, they know to pay.
Sometimes these people will just give me money because they have it and know I
need it. Sometimes I find money on the street. If I really need something, I
ask, either a friend or the Universe and it comes to me just in time. If I want
something, which I mostly just don’t anymore, I’ll usually find it or someone
will give it to me months or years later. If there’s an “emergency” situation
and I super need money, we (me n the Universe) got that covered, too. I used to
have this little gay friend with a ton of money I gave my lifetime masterpiece to, who I could call up anytime and he’d always
spot me, but I think the cabal got to him, because I haven’t heard from him
lately, despite all my efforts to reach him. ☹ But there are other people and other ways, and
honestly, it wouldn’t even surprise me if some wizard showed up at my door, or
wherever I’m at, with all the money I need.
A major downside (that has become a plus side) to my
situation, really, is that when I leave the house, I taketh food. Always. And forever.
Amen. I am a hangry bitch, so I do this for everyone’s sakes. If I don’t have
food and I’m hungry, woe be unto you, that person, and all those bitches over
there. Cuz it’s ON if I’m hungry.
Like, spare-no-expense, lay-waste-to-all, screaming-at-strangers hangry up in here. So… I MUST bring food with me. For like, my sanity, and the sake of all
humanity. Because I can’t afford to eat out. Not even McDonalds or gas station shit. Ha! Buy food?! HA! That’s for suckers. I get like $100 of Chic-fil-a for FREE every week from the nice Christians. Nah, bro. I go out, I bring my shit. Friends know I roll with food, all the time, every day I’m
out on these mean, desolate, not-for-fat-bitches-like-me streets. Cuz it’s so
serious. I gots ta eat.
A fun thing though, is that not buying food means I just get whatever they give me or have available. Which is actually pretty interesting. I get stuff I’d never get otherwise, like wonton wrappers, or fancy chocolate, or persimmons (whatever the fuck those are). Anyway, it’s a fun game of chance at the food pantry and it makes me stretch my creative muscles more. I make crazy shit now; like the other day, I made this…stuff. I put cut up potatoes, beets, onions, and dried up, crusty old bread in a glass, square pan. I covered it in wine that I had gotten left over from an art show I’d volunteered at, Yum Yum sauce, and, like, minced garlic as well as a garlic salad dressing and stirred that shit up. Then I just popped it in the oven at a random temperature (guided by the Universe) for a random amount of time (same) and took it out whenever and we ate it and it was f-ing amazing. Like, so, so good. And who’d have thought, right? Just chop shit up and put it in a pan, cover it with other shit, and cook that shit, and thennnnn you’ve got delicious, gourmet food!!! Kinda. IDK.
I’m excited for when I do have money, for sure, but now that I don’t and can handle it, and, really, handle it well, I’m not
scared of being broke, skint, or destitute at all. Do you know how hard you have to flex creatively to be poor?? So, so hard. And, really, when I’m runnin’
shit later and things go south financially, I’ll have that covered too, cuz once upon
a time… I WAS CRAZY POOR.
