The Man In the Laundrymat
Jan. 25th, 2012 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI had Big Fun doing tax prep last night. The Alternatives Credit Union crowd is a fun group of people. Hard to know whether it’s the extreme poverty or the utter lack of a social set has affected me more over the last two and a half years. And of course they feed into each other. But I love bantering and got a chance to do some last night, and all in the service of the public good! Win/win, right?
Earlier that day, I had to do my laundry. One of the big degradations of being incredibly poor, believe it or not, is that you’re relegated to doing the laundry in a public place. When you own a washer and a dryer, laundry is no big deal: You stick a load in, you forget about it, you pull it out. But when you’re broke, laundry means making a trip and hoping no one is judging the state of your underwear – it’s new! I swear it! I got it at Walmart just a year and a half ago! – when you smuggle it into a machine. Two times out of ten, the machine is broken; you’ve wasted your laundry detergent and your quarters. Hey, those quarters add up!
Yesterday the only other inhabitant of the laundrymat was a ragged-looking man working on his cardboard sign. Homeless vet. Please help.
He looked to be in his forties which means he could have been anywhere from 25 to 60, I suppose. He had a large cut that needed suturing on his right temple, and he smelled really, really bad, that stage of body odor when it actually starts to ferment. But he didn’t look like a crazy guy or a drunk. He looked like someone who’d simply had incredibly bad luck.
He leaped up politely to help me with my laundry baskets. Softspoken, slight drawl. He didn’t seem as though he was helping me to get a handout out of it which was good, because I wasn’t in any position to give him a handout. Charity is kind of like those airplane disaster warnings: Put your own oxygen mask on first. My oxygen mask has a broken air supply right now. I’m desperately angling for a new one.
I felt really, really bad for him. This wasn’t the laundrymat I usually go to – it was an action-packed day yesterday what with studying for the tax exam, tutoring Tibetans and doing the actual tax prep itself. I picked a laundrymat that had freeway access. I guess that's why he picked this laundrymat too.
For some reason, I started thinking about something I used to do in Monterey when I had a large income, at least on paper, but an even larger number of expenses. The store needed stuff, Max needed stuff, Robin needed stuff, Ben needed stuff, the animals needed stuff. I got into the habit of hiding money. Slipping $20 bills into the pages of back-shelved books, pots I didn’t use very often, the baking soda box in the fridge. Then I willed myself to forget I’d put it there. My logic was that when I found the money again, it would seem like a gift from heaven and I could spend it on myself!! I did get a few good movies and cappuccinos out of it.
I also remembered my insane aunt Jane lecturing me when I first arrived in Ithaca and made contact. “But how can this be, Patty, Patty, Patty, that you have no money, that you didn’t think to put $1,000 away for a rainy day?”
I did think to put $1,000 away for a rainy day, Jane. But this ain’t no rainy day. It’s a typhoon.
I told the Tibetans about the guy in the laundrymat. They got their jobs back – sort of. Their hours were slashed. They now wait on the privileged children of the very rich five hours a day instead of eight hours a day. Not enough for benefits. Not enough to pay Baalorma’s childcare expenses.
“Poor people here, more poor people in India,” Tenzing said.
“Yes, but poor people here are old,” Baalorma said.
“Old people poor in India too.”
“Yes, but it is very odd. Americans do not take care of old people.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t really have that as a cultural tradition. Americans don’t expect to take care of their older relatives.”
“Over Christmas, at the mall, we see an old man standing with a sign,” Baalorma said. “He wants to go home, I think. His home is far away. And he makes me cry. So I give him money.”
“No!” says Tenzing. She grew up in India where the beggars are more common than sparrows. She has the pragmatic Buddhist’s view of extreme poverty, not unlike the view of certain Presbyterians and Calvinists: It may not be their fault exactly that these people are poor, but clearly it’s what God wanted. Otherwise they wouldn’t be poor! You don’t mess around with what God wants.
Baalorma shrugged. “I have only a little money. Two dollars, three dollars. I give it to him so he can go home. I hope he gets there.”
That word again… Home!
Earlier that day, I had to do my laundry. One of the big degradations of being incredibly poor, believe it or not, is that you’re relegated to doing the laundry in a public place. When you own a washer and a dryer, laundry is no big deal: You stick a load in, you forget about it, you pull it out. But when you’re broke, laundry means making a trip and hoping no one is judging the state of your underwear – it’s new! I swear it! I got it at Walmart just a year and a half ago! – when you smuggle it into a machine. Two times out of ten, the machine is broken; you’ve wasted your laundry detergent and your quarters. Hey, those quarters add up!
Yesterday the only other inhabitant of the laundrymat was a ragged-looking man working on his cardboard sign. Homeless vet. Please help.
He looked to be in his forties which means he could have been anywhere from 25 to 60, I suppose. He had a large cut that needed suturing on his right temple, and he smelled really, really bad, that stage of body odor when it actually starts to ferment. But he didn’t look like a crazy guy or a drunk. He looked like someone who’d simply had incredibly bad luck.
He leaped up politely to help me with my laundry baskets. Softspoken, slight drawl. He didn’t seem as though he was helping me to get a handout out of it which was good, because I wasn’t in any position to give him a handout. Charity is kind of like those airplane disaster warnings: Put your own oxygen mask on first. My oxygen mask has a broken air supply right now. I’m desperately angling for a new one.
I felt really, really bad for him. This wasn’t the laundrymat I usually go to – it was an action-packed day yesterday what with studying for the tax exam, tutoring Tibetans and doing the actual tax prep itself. I picked a laundrymat that had freeway access. I guess that's why he picked this laundrymat too.
For some reason, I started thinking about something I used to do in Monterey when I had a large income, at least on paper, but an even larger number of expenses. The store needed stuff, Max needed stuff, Robin needed stuff, Ben needed stuff, the animals needed stuff. I got into the habit of hiding money. Slipping $20 bills into the pages of back-shelved books, pots I didn’t use very often, the baking soda box in the fridge. Then I willed myself to forget I’d put it there. My logic was that when I found the money again, it would seem like a gift from heaven and I could spend it on myself!! I did get a few good movies and cappuccinos out of it.
I also remembered my insane aunt Jane lecturing me when I first arrived in Ithaca and made contact. “But how can this be, Patty, Patty, Patty, that you have no money, that you didn’t think to put $1,000 away for a rainy day?”
I did think to put $1,000 away for a rainy day, Jane. But this ain’t no rainy day. It’s a typhoon.
I told the Tibetans about the guy in the laundrymat. They got their jobs back – sort of. Their hours were slashed. They now wait on the privileged children of the very rich five hours a day instead of eight hours a day. Not enough for benefits. Not enough to pay Baalorma’s childcare expenses.
“Poor people here, more poor people in India,” Tenzing said.
“Yes, but poor people here are old,” Baalorma said.
“Old people poor in India too.”
“Yes, but it is very odd. Americans do not take care of old people.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t really have that as a cultural tradition. Americans don’t expect to take care of their older relatives.”
“Over Christmas, at the mall, we see an old man standing with a sign,” Baalorma said. “He wants to go home, I think. His home is far away. And he makes me cry. So I give him money.”
“No!” says Tenzing. She grew up in India where the beggars are more common than sparrows. She has the pragmatic Buddhist’s view of extreme poverty, not unlike the view of certain Presbyterians and Calvinists: It may not be their fault exactly that these people are poor, but clearly it’s what God wanted. Otherwise they wouldn’t be poor! You don’t mess around with what God wants.
Baalorma shrugged. “I have only a little money. Two dollars, three dollars. I give it to him so he can go home. I hope he gets there.”
That word again… Home!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
We don't take take of the poor, elderly and homeless.....
Date: 2012-01-25 05:19 pm (UTC)I would guess more than any other country.
In San Francisco, someone calculated the total money allocated to the homeless, and divided it by the number of homeless. It's enough, and more, to rent them all nice apartments. The dirty little secret is that there is a whole network of nonprofit agencies that are growing rich administering this money.
Re: We don't take take of the poor, elderly and homeless.....
Date: 2012-01-27 04:06 pm (UTC)Yes, it reminds me somehow of Obama's last job subsidy. If he'd merely divided up the allocation among the people he managed to find $35,000 a year jobs for, they would have been able to invest it and live off the interest. But that would have been wrong, right? Why? I mean a government subsidy is a government subsidy.
Re: We don't take take of the poor, elderly and homeless.....
Date: 2012-01-27 04:46 pm (UTC)Re: We don't take take of the poor, elderly and homeless.....
Date: 2012-01-27 04:54 pm (UTC)I voted for the guy but I won't make that mistake twice.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 05:57 pm (UTC)Of course I'm thinking in terms of beyond having/wanting the basics, like a safe place to live, clothes on our backs, and food in our stomachs.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 04:32 pm (UTC)