Saturday, October 4, 2008

What Exactly Does Struggle Mean?

We watched the debates. Kind of. I feel asleep halfway through and my husband was antsing around like a four year old on crack. I think because he knew Ultimate Fighter was on. But since I am usually not interested in what is blaring out of our TV set, it was hard for him to deny me this one request.

And at one point I heard one of the two yahoos mention "struggling"... financially. After it sank in a bit my husband said, "Are we struggling?"... I answered with a resounding, "NO!".

It's true- we need to be careful with our money, or lack of it. We would never make it if someone around here lost thier job. We DO live paycheck to paycheck. We owe more on our condo than it is actually worth. We don't eat out and we "go camping" for vacation because we refuse to go places where we wish we could partake in the "cool" stuff. It's not really a vacation if all you can afford is the hotel, and you sit around and watch other excited folks go on helicopter rides, eat fat steaks and watch broadway shows. While we hone in on our vending machine chips and the TV.

But we can buy clothes we need, I mean want, I mean need, ( gotta be careful with the verbiage on that one ). We have enough money to buy the food we want, and then cook it at home. We have money for gas and to pay all of our bills. We have cable and internet and gym memberships. We have two cars and allow ourselves entertainment, ( like Netflix and US Weekly ) with restraint.

To me that is not struggling. That catapults us into the "making it" category.

I hate election year. It's like when someone else shows up with a fresh manicure and you look down at your own chipped, bitten and cuticle garbled nails, that were okay by you ten minutes ago, and decide right then and there that you ALSO need a manicure...and STAT!

I don't think the new president is going to change all that much for me. I will still be middle class and making it regardless of what the puppet heads say up there.

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