Diary Of A Broke-ass Man

Having a very low income, or being close to poverty, is something many people face...that's just the harsh reality. You think working a dead-end job is bad; being broke and unemployed is even worse. Having a wallet with no money in it...is like having an aquarium without fish!
It's a shame that most of us have to work long hours to survive in this superficial society, but it's better than having no job at all! At most jobs, you might work some over time, and get time and a half; but when you're unemployed, you're begging for money half of the time!
When you're poor, your thought process works a little differently compared to the middle-class; when you're middle-class, you fantasize making a million dollars; when you're lower-class, you fantasize about making 10 bucks!
You start planning what you would do with all that money; you say to yourself, "If only I had $10; I would buy some bus-fare, and a bag of chips...my friends would be so jealous! With that kind of money...I'd have to move!"
There are some advantages being poor; when you're broke, you don't have to worry about the opposite sex trying to get with you for your money; when you're broke, you don't have to worry about someone robbing you; when you're broke, you will become more creative; if you're employed, but you want to unleash that creative genius from within...you're going to have to get laid off!
Poverty will make you more creative...trust me! I remember years ago, I ran out of milk - so I ended up eating cornflakes...with koolaid! I poured that koolaid over my bowl of cereal, closed my eyes, and focused on cows!
When you're poor, your survival instincts kick in; you learn to live without a few things, the middle class take for granted - like cable; I lived without cable for years!
I lived without it for so long, when I finally got my cable hooked up, I heard there was a TV show called "Seinfeld"!
(for me, Seinfeld re-runs were like all new episodes!)
You know what's the worse about not having any money? You can't afford decent clothes. When you can't buy clothing, you feel like a loser walking around wearing "Cross Colors"!
When you have no money, it's hard to keep up with the latest fashions; everyone is wearing Calvin Klein's...you're still wearing that Michael Jackson "Thriller" jacket!
When people are making fun of you, you don't even have those zombies backing you up!
I know from first hand experience what it's like to be financially challenged; it all started when I left home at the age of eighteen; I had very little life experience, no job, and on top of that, I was a high school drop-out!
When you don't graduate from high school, you can't even become a garbage man!
Whoever thought you would need a diploma to pick up trash; I knew how to do that in kindergarten!
When I picked up my piece of garbage, I don't recall my parents saying "I think we have a prodigy on our hands!"
Even though I turned out to be a successful comic with my very own award winning TV show, garbage men look down on me. I over heard a garbage man say to his co-worker, "please shoot me if turn out to be like him!"
Do you know what it's like to be hungry? I do! When you get to the point of starvation, you end up swallowing your pride; just to see if that would make your belly full!
There was a time I was so broke, I wasn't even able to buy food; there were times I found myself at the food bank!
When you're at the food bank, you don't always get the best stuff; one time I got a box of macaroni & cheese...but without the cheese; but because I was highly creative that day...I used Ketchup! (still focusing on cows.)
Back in those days I would do anything to survive; my old room-mate and I would search, and gather up all the nickels, and dimes we found around our apartment, went to the corner store...so that we could buy one donut! After we would bring that donut home, split it in half, then said grace.To a regular person, a donut is just a donut; but when that's your only source of food, a jelly donut becomes a stuffed turkey!
Because of those days, starvation is something I stay far away from; because when you're that hungry, your belly starts talking to you; it starts saying things like "You need to eat, you need a drink...get a job!"
Don't get me wrong, I worked many jobs; many of them for minimum wage; many of them with no benefits; at some these jobs, I didn't stick around long enough to pick up a check!
One of my longest working jobs was KFC. I was there for four years.When I worked there, I used to steal the ketchup packets, and paper napkins...I don't have to tell what the paper napkins were for...let's just say Cottonelle ain't cheap!
I used to take everything home; I was so desperate for stuff, I even stole the salt & pepper!
(because when you're creative and broke, even a donut needs a little seasoning.)
It's very hard to live comfortably when you have no money; there was a time when I was renting a bed room apartment paying $300 a month, and I was still struggling...for some reason, I was always $299 short!
It's the worse when you can't pay your rent; one time I was so low on cash, to come up with the payment, I became a guinea pig for a medical study; this study paid me $800 to test out a drug for high blood pressure.
To make this money, I had to go there for two weekends; they put me on a high calorie diet, they gave me these pills, and drew blood 24 times a day; they took so much blood, it made me light-headed. When I think about it now, taking those pills gave me headaches for several years...but I had a roof over my head!
(if I died after that study, no one could ever say I died homeless!)
Here's the thing about these studies; we have all these volunteers taking part in all these dangerous experiments, which will benefit mankind someday, and we call them heroes...they aren't heroes, they're just a bunch of poor people trying to make a buck!
A hero is a rich man who sacrifices his family, his business, and his reputation by injecting himself with an experimental AIDS vaccine! The poor volunteer isn't the hero, he would have done that same study, for a box of Q-tips!
I'm going to quickly end this piece by saying that there is a prejudice out there when it comes to people with low-incomes; not only can poverty effect your wallet, but it can also effect the way people perceive you.
It is true that there are many people out there who simply have low ambition, but for many other, they're are victims of circumstance. Well I'm here to tell you, if it's true that all men are created equal, then this image of financial success, or lack of, is just a distortion; because money doesn't make the man...
MAN CAN ONLY MAKE THE MONEY!