Er, I mean, poverty sucks. Because truly life is already hard as it is, having to deal with the prospect of dying in a few years from cancer, the very real tendency of losing one’s temper and killing someone and getting incarcerated and getting raped in prison, and the very real threat of meeting your parallel universe self and getting annihilated to bits in the process. And now they expect us to deal with having no money. Smoketh is currently living in abject poverty, having to scrape sauce off the bottom of the Tupperware after their drug-company sponsored lunch just so she would have some semblance of ulam for dinner. To save up on toothpaste she places a practically empty tube under a car wheel and drives over it just enough to squeeze out the remaining stuff. A few days ago I saw her ask a bantay for the cup of ice used for ABG because truly, Smoketh would need something to drink. A few hours ago Smoketh has told me, “Ang sarap ng Chillz ng Mini-Stop,” and I informed her that it must be the poverty speaking because she would otherwise be guzzling a huge expensive cup of Gloria Jeans’ Voltage. I am being blasé about it now, but in a few months I know I could sink much lower, pilfering galletas rationed to patients and such. But you know what, it doesn’t matter. We have all been trained to live in poverty since grade I and we have our teachers who had precognitively thought of this plausibility to thank for it because obviously, that’s why we’ve been required to declaim “Alms, alms, spare me a piece of bread” for years and years.

Categories: Blogs