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| A kid now lives in this room. |
I have four jobs. One pays really well. The next two- not so much. (Can you tell which two are in the field called The Arts?) The fourth is completely unpaid...and may just be my favorite, anyhow. But it turns out that American Express will not accept a peanut butter-smeared hug as payment. How's that for irony? (They're not accepted at the Olympic games- circa 1996- but are gonna be choosy about what THEY take? Please.)
Anyway. Money. We don't have a ton. But depending on whom you ask, we're simply rolling in it. Or standing in the bread line. And NO, the former opinion is not mine, and the latter is not P.J.'s (Not entirely.)
Our neighbors think we're supra wealthy because- get this- we don't rent out our basement. Forgetting for a moment that that's why we bought a house and aren't still renting...let's focus on the fact that, on our block, people have at least three apartments in each house. Most of the folks living therein are related. This is boggling to me. I mean, I love my family (a lot, let's just go on record as saying) but I cannot imagine a separate branch of my family in each bedroom. Permanently. Okay, actually I can. And it feels all crampy in my mind's eye.
When we first moved in, a neighbor approached me (in Spanish) about renting our basement out to his friend. I laughed. (Partly because my Spanish is really rusty and I thought he had said something hilarious about liquor. He may also have.) A few moments of thought later, I told him that we weren't gonna be renting. At the time, we had just moved away from our own stompy upstairs neighbors- plus, our lower level was nowhere where you'd wanna live. Or load the laundry after dark. Maybe during the day if one were unarmed.
My response quickly made me aware that we were suddenly the whitest Richie Riches on the street. So I amended. The next time the question was posed, I eagerly told them that YES, as soon as we made it livable would we be renting...but only...you'd have to ask my husband. He knows all the details! (This I hate. I do not care to be thought of as the Clueless Little Woman- but it's the lesser of two evils between that and having to evade money-related questions. Okay, and those both fall way beneath the third possibility of being stabbed to death in my sleep during a Rob The Swells raid for Great-Grandma's crystal. Which we don't have! We don't even have bad crystal.)
Another neighbor asked Peej if I were Nora's nanny...which I'm not sure if it means a) we're rich enough to have a nanny of our own, b) no one in this 'hood gets to be at home with their own child, c) Nora looks nothing like me, or d) I appear way too young to have birthed offspring. I think you know the answer I dig.
Some friends think we're well-off because we own a home. But- and back me up here, homeowners- this just means we were able to afford 1/200th of our house's worth...and will never be able to afford to move out, ever. (Which is cool. 'Cause after how intense our move-in process was, I told P.J. that I planned on dying in this house. Even after my family goes on to live in far-flung locales, I'll still be the creepy old woman/ghost haunting this joint, checking for cured meats in the fridge and watching my programs.)
Granted, we're definitely fortunate enough to do what we love. Peej and his three and a half jobs and me with mine (and jeebus- internet writing? Is that even a thing?) and the crazy amount of time I get to spend with Nora each day is beyond a gift. That said, I'm still nudging Nora towards a career in The Maths. Also, I wouldn't turn down a Powerball ticket or two.
But then there comes a moment like the other night, after P.J. had hooked up our "new" antennae to our TV (did I mention that he's taking my cable? HE'S TAKING MY CABLE. Sure, new baby, blah blah, reduced work hours, la di dah- wait a sec, maybe I'm the reason why we're poor...) and we were scrolling through the fuzzy channels and finally landed on PBS. And there was a documentary that I only half understood. It was about a Korean social worker and an impoverished island and a blind girl and all of these kids that she taught to read and these people that had NOTHING at all...and I Ugly Cried. (Sure, we only caught the last five minutes- hence I have no idea of anyone's name or actual locations- but that didn't stop me from weeping like I had been dumped only moments before the 8th grade dance. For example.)
And I realized [yet again] how good I had it. And how good 90 percent of the people I know have it. (And how awfully that poor blind girl of indeterminate origin had it.)
And it made me want to send them all of my possessions: the frayed hoodies, wedding china, and unopened package of liverwurst. (That's right.)
At least an IOU for a blanket tent, signed with an apple juice-soaked crayon.
(Those nouns make me feel pretty wealthy, indeed.)
3 comments:
I love this post! Very different from your usual posts but as a home-owner in a neighborhood where most houses contain triple the amount of residents I could imagine living with it was really fun to read.
very true .. a good perspective adjuster!
What a great post. My husband and I are very comfortable with the idea of raising two kids in our two-bedroom condo but people look at us funny when we say this. We have to bring up the "immigrant argument" as I call it about how so many families have more than 4 people in a place our size. We were tempted briefly by an amazing house in Rogers Park but decided that we'd rather have less income stress than more space. It's nice to know there are others out there like us.
However, if we had a basement, he would rent it out in an instant. :-)
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