5th June 2001
I'm poor.
Honestly.
My outgoings are fifty a month to British Telecom, thirty-odd for Sky, fifteen to my ISP and
around a tenner for my TV licence.
I give half my earnings to my mom.
I'm always into my 'Credit Zone' (like a sort of permitted unarranged overdraft, mine is set to
two hundred and fifty pounds).
When my pay comes and my credit zone is paid up and the bills and such paid, I got nothing. If I'm lucky, I can go splurge on a cheap DVD. But then I see some must-have something-or-other and out comes my trusty Switch card, bang goes any attempt at saving up money.
This doesn't actually bother me that much, as I feel totally justified in blowing a bunch of
money I don't exactly have on things like DVD players or VCRs. Why? Because I work my ass off
being a care assistant. This is a little something back. Like a 'reward'.
My job bought my my TV, my VCR, my DVD player, my RiscPC, my DVDs, and some of the bizarre crap
that I'm not sure what it is for. It paid to hook my computers up to Ethernet. It paid for my
modem. It pays my phone bills. And it paid for my copy of FHM's 100 sexiest women so that I
could see Alyson Hannigan in 10th position.
So, I have no money. I'm poor.
I can read.
I have a place to live.
I'm part of the 'wired generation'.
I can state that I don't believe in Christianity without worrying about being killed.
I can state that in my opinion Tony Blair is an ass, without being arrested.
I have a self-given right to be depressed, as opposed to just being oppressed.
I'm not persecuted, I'm not involved in a war, I've not had my possessions destroyed by rampant
militia wannabes.
And finally, I am in reasonable health with a job, a parent, and friends and people that I can
trust.
So maybe I have no money.
But I'm not poor.
I have so much.