On an Ordinary Day

I may have mentioned this before, but I grew up … umm …. uhh … ahem …without a whole lot of resources. Okay, we were poor (or working poor) for a great deal of my life.

To summarize tidily and succinctly: When I was born, we were on welfare and lived at my grandmother’s house – my father’s mother, not my mother’s mother because she (my grandmother) wouldn’t speak to my mother because she (my mother) was in a relationship with a Black man. Then we moved to the projects, and my mom got a secretarial job. When I was five, we relocated to Iowa, where my mom got a job at an animal feed company making about $2.00/hour. Shortly, thereafter we moved into a trailer, and I grew up in a variety of trailer parks. Mom got several promotions throughout the 20+ years at the feed company, but she was always a single parent struggling to make sure we had what we needed.

And while that might sound grim – and it is if I told you many of the accompanying stories - the reality is that it’s not my life now and hasn’t been for quite some time. SRH and I are firmly in the middle class, most of our friends are middle class, and the life of eating ketchup sandwiches seems pretty far behind me most days.

But there are some days…days when I have a rip snortin’ good time talking about old times with some of my friends who have also been there. Truly. Because even though living in poverty is hard and degrading, it also produces some killer stories. And when you’re around people who get it, it’s can be really fun discussing family drama, criminality, and going without.

(Unlike being around people who have never been poor, who look at you horrified when you start to name your family’s euphemisms for going to prison. As a side note, this particular post may not be enjoyable to you if a) you’ve never been poor or b) your family dysfunction is of the Boy Scout variety or c) you are a good, decent person with even a little bit of sensitivity in your body.)

But indulge me because I recently had a great night of stories and laughter with a good friend whose family may be as crazy as my own. And while much of our discussion was focused on family drama, the economic factor was never very far below the surface.

These are my favorite quotes from our discussion:

“On his way to the police station to turn himself in, my brother got off the bus and robbed a bank. But of course, since he’d taken the bus there, he had to find another bus to get him away from the scene, so the police caught him at the bus stop.”

“Well, his mom has offered to pay for their therapy now that they’re adults, but they’re kind of over it.”

"She sewed him up in a sheet. Beat him up, and then un-sewed the sheet. He was so drunk that the next morning, he just thought he’d been in a fight.”

“This must be a Northeastern Ohio thing: He spends every weekend with his girlfriend, but stays home with his wife during the week. My uncle does that, too!”

“So that they wouldn’t think he’d been involved in a robbery, he told the police that he was a drug dealer.”

“Yeah, my father’s wife is younger than his oldest daughter. Yep, I guess that makes me a little bitter still.”

What quotes have you heard yourself – or someone else - saying that sum up your family’s nuttiness?

(Come on, we all have the stories – it can be from your extended family, your “do over” marriage, or your partner’s family. It can be about broken marriages, broken laws, or broken limbs. Whatever it is, sometimes we just have to laugh our way through the craziness).