Here we are on the 28th day and on the phone with someone who is on disability and
a fixed income. I can feel the pain and the tears because that end of the month thing
hits me every end of the month but basically affects so many of the 99ers esepcially
the disabled , elderly, handicapped. and unemployed and no safety net. She is telling
me things I already know and it is different problems in a household but the same thing at the end of the month for the bare necessities. I heard her cries in anguish as I held my own tears back. I had just gotten back from the store where I literally argued with the clerk on her refusing to take my 300 pennies for gas and some silver mixed in. For those on here who get paid once a month...you know this story ..you face it every single month and those who don't listen up because this is what Occupy Wall Street is mostly about. Go to the jump below
I will explain how my heart was racing as I felt so completely useless other than to listen. The reason I started a 501 back in 2000 was to help veterans and their families who were not nearly in this dire of need but in need non the less. This person is from a veterans family and advocates as well.
This person was in bed crying and had taken som blankets down to Occupy. She had to get home because it was starting to rain and school was out for children today. In one week, her car insurance was cancelled, her adult son is moving in and out and unemployed, and not receiving unemployment. The children are in counseling. The
food bank had been visited she told me and there she was with no toilet paper. She is such a fine person and desperate. She played by the rules and has an abundance of education. She is an out of work teacher. She has special needs kids but get almost no ssi and what little is there is questioned constantly. Papers to fill out. Forms to be
signed. Children that I know feel the strain. Her battle cry was, "Why can't I make this shit work anymore". I have been poor all my adult life and since when is a 10.00 pair of shoes a luxury for your children? Why is the food almost gone again? Why does
the kids misbehave so badly and when I did try to get them counseling, a pediphile was sent to my home from the help I asked from DFC.?" The guy is in jail now but how does that help her? When Occupy folks sat with her and advised her she found out nothing was going to happen to the state for putting her family at risk. Now this was just the personal stuff. Let's move on to the financial hardship that face many of us this time of month.
What many of us do is completely shut down. We are tired. We have a computer..sometimes..when the internet is not shut off or doesn't break. We know once we pay our bills we pray daily nothing breaks or blows out like a tire or a transmission drops. We hope the washer hold up. We sweat the light bill. No one in the utility game will work and take little bits. All or nothing for most of us. The phone gets shut off for many several times in a month. Most disabled people have to have a phone for obvious reasons. They have to have transporation for obvious reasons.
In my own household, at the end of the month it is all money talk all the time from me.
I hate that but some of my disabled members do not want to talk money and due to their disability think one can cut back more. Cut back where? If they are not thinking clearly they will suggest just let the light bill go and not realizing it costs an extra deposit to get it back on. The talk is mostly about do you have an extra three dollars today? You hope someone put back three dollars and didn't have to spend it. In my household when the kids have to have something extra for school it is drama.
My daugher this week has the Nancy Reagan commotion of say no to drugs wear red week.
A person at the 1 percent would simply just go by a red shirt that has been misplaced but they would own more than ONE red shirt. You look under every bed, all the clothes. In the hamper. You stress over a stupid shirt ! It looks like the scene from The American President where the girlfriend tells Michael Douglas...screw this , as she looked for a sweater, she'll have to get used to disappointment. Of course she was talking about an adult and it was a movie. The scene plays out the same anyway. The stress of looking and not finding. There may be an argument over just nothing between the adults and teens. Mom, are you listening to me? No ...help me find the shirt. Then you look in the cabinets for some sort of decent meal to magically put togeter and sell that bill of goods to the family as a gourmet's delight complete with a burned down candle. In the back of your mind though you don't want to use that candle because it might be needed if the lights are cut and they don't hold up to their end of the bargain (The utility co) to hold off till the 1st on your arrangement that you begged for.
When you are on a fixed income you have papparazzi. If you are broke..youhave papparazzi..Did some of you know that? No they are not normal papparrazzi but they hound you. There are no lights and microphones but there is the phone that didn't get shut down yet and they want to speak to you. They mispronounce your name and demand their money from 4 years ago on a credit card you have long since thrown away in a zilliion cut up pieces. You tell them you are unavailable because the first 300 times you spoke to them they didn't want workable arrangements. That is how the papparazzi works around here I am sure many on here have their own stories.
There may be sickness in the house..depending on what time of the month on how well you get because fixed income people in many cases are not qualified for medicaid and all in the household don't have medical insurance. At the end of the month it is a trip to the emergency room or suffer at home. Just depends.
There are extended family members who think because there is an income coming in, that you are rich. They lost their car or have no insurance or gas and want to borrow yours and then the argument comes. One has to be a real hoarder at the end of the month and my friend and me were almost in tears because it is not supposed to be this way. No we are not homeless of hungry but we are not far from it. We are not going hungry but we eat what we can find on sale and what is given to us at the bread store or family food basket once a month. In many cases it would be so nice to be able to get out there and work but now you are older or senior and garnishiment is in the tea leave future if you try to land that little Walmart greeting job.
You may look in the mirror and you see age and agony from stress. You decide to feel better by going through clothes and give what doesn't fit away to someone who is in worse shape. Every single day is a new challenge. No one is really happy except the kids who are guarded from this talk and everyone kinda wanders around in their own space. One may be playing on an old video game years old. Another is on the phone laughing like there is nothing abnormal about all of this. One may be on the computer writing diaries and trying to help not only their own household but any others out there struggling.
At the end of the month two years ago it didn't hit until the day before payday.
Now the riga maroll starts around the 15th and hits a high peak around the 23rd.
Caregivers are strained and unpaid. The gas, omg, the gas, what if someone gets sick and then the argument starts because there is not 20.00 extra to see one through for three more days and then one hopes no check has been redeposited because the bank has taken your money and the fees are adding up again.
Your mind starts racing back to when it was not like this. What the hell happened? What did I do wrong? Get older without a security net? Lose too many jobs under Reagan? Be too free hearted somewhere in the last several years? One doesn't mind sacrafice but like the 1 percent it is rarely shared. You will sacrafice and others will take advantage and they are desparate as well. You can say no but then the arguments begin and it is all over how come we are out of milk or who used up all the sugar. Then one will say this is going to stop..We are going to have to manage better.
HOW? You cannot budget what is not there.
You go to bed in tears and you wake up in tears and that is just the end of the month financial crack not even all the things going on personally and past issues. End of monthers who are activists will spend time at the shelters or food banks or Occupy and their pain is real and it hurts. We are invisible and the most caring people in the world who feel helpless and abandoned.
Many of us should have been retired but raising children again. Many of us are three or 5 bucks away from qualifying for food stamps but somehow the people who determine just don't count that insurance or car repair or broken washer.
THESE ARE SOME OF THE PEOPLE THE OCCUPIERS ARE STANDING IN THE COLD AND THE RAIN AND ARE BEATEN DOWN FOR. THIS IS WHO THEY ARE..THIS IS WHAT THIS COUNTRY HAS BECOME AND THANK GOD THEY ARE THERE. I PRAY FOR THEIR SAFETY EVERYDAY AND MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT THEY ARE ON THE FRONTLINES OF A REAL CLASSWAR. I AM A 99ER AND WILL BE TILL THE DAY THEY LAY ME DOWN.
Thank you Occupy wall Street. Please make it better for our children and their children. Our legislators and government failed us.
Oh and the weekend is coming up and the countdown begins....3 more days...2 more
day after tomorrow..tomorrow... why did the 1st fall on Tuesday. And with that I shall answer the phone ..The Papparrazi is calling. This whole scenearo will play out again next month at the same time and it is our new norm. Only now the holidays are facing us.
Theme song for many of the 99ers on monthly incomes