I'm learning how to drive for the first time ever. I'm older than a lot of people are when they learn how to drive, for sure, but it it must be clear that I have never had any reason to drive until now. I suppose that's not entirely true, but it was for a long time. To start with, up north, back in good old Rhode Island, the bus system is awesome and could get me wherever I needed to go. When I was a YMCA lifeguard Jess and I would walk the mile or so to the bus stop every morning at 7:00am to get to work by 8:00am and it never failed us (except the first day we did it when the bus broke down before it got to our stop and we were forced to get a ride from our mother, thereby putting us in a slight state of terror every time the bus was a few minutes late). The high school we attended was less than a mile away and Jess and I happily walked there in the sun, rain, and snow. Was it awesome? No. Did we survive? Sure! In fact, lots of places from the local library to the Cumberland Farms we bought milk at were within walking distance since we lived in a small town. For sure, there were places we couldn't get to without driving, but I just stayed home instead! Problem solved!
My sister and my methodology was not shared by our older brother Michael. As a 'young man seeking independence' he was gung-ho to learn how to drive! Mom began teaching him when he was 13 and by the time her was old enough to take Drivers Ed and get his permit he was an expert. He passed all his tests the first time he took them and was desperate to drive any chance he got. Looking back I wonder why my mother never took Jess and I out to drive. I suppose if she had offered we would have taken her up on it at the time and might have gotten our license at 16 just like our brother. There could be some underlying inherent sexism there, but I think it's more likely she just didn't want us driving. We were her babies after all, but also why bother! We weren't outwardly interested, so why bring it up herself? Michael was already a pain asking to drive all the time and borrowing the car for joy-rides with his friends so she might have decided it was a bad idea altogether to have two more drivers in the family.
So Michael got his license and we didn't but as I mentioned, he always had to borrow the car. There lies the most prominent reason I never got my license: Why get a license if I can't afford to buy a car? Getting one's license is a liberating experience. It's meant to open the whole world to you. But does it really do that if you're driving your mom's minivan? According to my brother, yes, according to me and Jess, no. After years of borrowing mom and dad's car though, Michael eventually saved up to buy his own vehicle - a super sweet sports car that looked like something out of Fast and Furious. That sounds great but I remind you again, I come from a poor family. My brother worked an indescribable number of hours in order to afford this used sports car, only to discover it would cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to afford the repairs she needed to be same. Then there was the matter of handling registration and license plates and the fact that he lived in Boston where no one drives cars so he just had to park in semi-permanently and it just looked like a big old mess to me. As he was doing all of this Jess and I had moved into our place literally on the same block as our university and the downtown area. While we have yet to try the bus system here as the southern buses are allegedly not as reliable as the ones up north, nothing we needed, or need really, is further than a bike ride away. Michael can have his car, I would say, I have everything I need as long as I have strong legs and an umbrella.
With all of this said and done, why have I chosen now to begin this license-acquiring process? The number one reason is because my mother has promised me her old car. Remember that minivan I mentioned earlier? That old ride is sort of set to be mine, but for complicated reasons. The van was in an accident that really only damaged the back bumper of the car but the insurance company said the car is old and sad and they would pay to have mom buy a new one instead of paying the repairs. So a new car was gotten for mom but the old car is still hanging around. Not worth enough to sell, my mother has informed me that the car is mine as long as it passes inspection. Complicated, but still solid enough to encourage me to get a license. The main reason I hadn't gotten one was because I couldn't afford a car, but with that issue resolved I am totally prepared to begin this strange and nerve-wracking process! Another reason, however, is my newfound desire for the convenience of a car. Like I said, everything I need is withing walking or bike-riding distance, but after three years of biking a mile home sometimes in pouring rain while weighed down with bags of groceries, I'm getting kind of tired. While my sister and I only pay about $15 every 2 weeks for groceries, you'd be surprised how much $15 worth of stuff from Save-A-Lots weighs. Especially milk. I am sick to death of the rope burns on my shoulders from that milk, cheese, and hot dog stuffed insulated cinch bag. I'm trying not to whine, but if you biked a mile carrying pounds of groceries every 2 weeks in the Floridian heat and rain for 3 years you'd probably be over it too. But a solution has been provided! A car would fix my problems astronomically! No longer would grocery shopping be an all-day event I have to plan for, but a quick trip I can fit into any days schedule! An additional, though less pressing bonus, will be the ability to drive Jess and I to the local Renaissance Faire instead of attempting to coerce her into coercing her kinda-sorta ex boyfriend into driving us, thereby forcing him to attend with us. It's not a necessity, but it sure would be nice!
Of note, despite the car being offered to Jess and I, I am the only one of us learning how to drive. My sister says she doesn't want to do it because driving frightens her, which is true, but there are other reasons as well. For one thing she why should she learn to drive if I'm going to already? She gets to get places via a car but doesn't have to actually drive it, sounds like a win-win to her. Additionally, my mother has a habit of turning anything that could be convenient to her into something absolutely convenient to her and even while practice driving for the first time she already had me driving her to do some errands around her gated community. Jess has no desire to do any more chores than she has to no matter if mom does usually live 2 hours away from us and has opted out of the whole driving process. As mentioned just now, I have begun doing practice driving around my moms gated 55+ community and while I was a little unsure at first, after only maybe 5 hours of practice I'm quite comfortable behind the wheel. After this many years of being relegated to shotgun because my sister wants to listen to music and force me to converse with the driver, I'm not exactly uneducated in the process of driving. I've also started reading the drivers handbook for Florida and I'm all set to get this license as quick as possible. There's no hurry in the general sense, but in the personal sense the rainy season has already begun here and the local Ren-Faire starts in November. Those are pretty good reasons as far as I can see to get this done in a hurry.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Middle Ground aka The Great Tech Debate
There was an episode the other day of Barbie: Dreamhouse Adventures where Barbie and her family take a break from technology for the weekend because they're too attached and need to learn how to appreciate life while 'disconnected'. The characters endure a hard weekend of Pioneer-Life with camping, water fetching, and mosquito bites. This sounds like a typical 'technology is bad, life is better without it', but in general the vibe of the episode was that technology makes a lot of things better so we should appreciate what we have while remembering to disconnect in order to have meaningful interactions. This message could have been better articulated in the episode, but overall I'm really down with that message! Especially given how much attention I've been spending on my technology usage as of late.
To be clear, I love technology. This is not me waving a cane in front of my lawn saying "phones are turning us into mindless zombies" and sharing those wild anti-technology images made by artists who then share them on Facebook because that makes sense. I love my phone and my laptop and my Kindle and there is nothing wrong with using them during breaks at work or during downtime at home or while waiting for a bus, but there is something to be said about our collective over-dependence on technology. In the past I've been strongly pro-technology in all varieties, but my latest focus on my own use of my gadgets has left me kind of in the middle.
It started with me seeing posts online telling people to stop electronic-device usage an hour or earlier before going to bed. It's supposed to help you get to sleep better or something, but the main problem I found was "If I turn off all my gadgets, what am I gonna do for an hour?" Whenever we lose power in the house I sleep a lot because as soon as it gets dark I go "Okay, nothing to do, time for bed". That same mentality was what was dawning on me with this 'no tech for an hour' rule. If I turn my gadgets off an hour before bed, I'm just gonna go to sleep an hour early. The thought that I couldn't think of anything to do without my phone or laptop for an hour bothered me, and it led me to focusing more on what I actually do with my spare time. I noticed that I reach for my phone way more than I thought I was! And to be honest, I'm not actually that bad about it and I was still bothered! I put it away for conversations and don't use it during meetings and whatnot, but I realized that all of my spare time was spent refreshing Facebook and Tumblr and if that was boring me I would, literally, put my phone down and pull up the same websites on my computer just out of habit. And that's what I was doing for hours on end. Outrageous, right! I couldn't believe it myself!
I took some time to process this. I'd sort of been convinced that there are only two ways to feel regarding technology: You hate it completely and think everyone needs to stop using it completely, or you love it and think everyone should use it as they please. I knew I wasn't chill with how much I was using my gadgets, but I still recognized their usefulness. Social media is a great place to communicate, my blogs and digital diaries are fantastic places to organize my thoughts, my games allowed me to be entertained when standing in long lines or when I was by myself, and texting is the fasted and easiest form of communication for anything and everything! Technology is great and useful so I didn't think I should give it up completely, but I also obviously felt myself, and maybe everyone, is too connected. I realized from all of this that I fall somewhere in the middle! Technology is great, but everything in moderation! Young people especially are so defensive of our use of technology and that's fine because it is a useful and fun resource, but to a point. We are all a little too attached to our phones! That doesn't mean get rid of them completely, just think about how often we use them and why and cut back in order to make room for other activities or personal interactions besides staring at a screen for hours on end. Technology brings people from around the world together, from digital penpals to gamer buddies, and gives us the ability to interact on a scale never seen before and that's amazing but we're lying if we don't say we a lot of use aren't using it as a form of communications and are instead wasting a lot of our time sitting alone sharing images other people posted as a 'hobby'. And that's a problem we all collectively need to work on. What's convenient for today isn't always what's best for tomorrow.
Again, technology is fabulous, but I really did need to cut back so I could enjoy literally every other cool part of life that I was missing out on in addition to my tech-time. So, I still have my phone to catch Pokemon and send Snapchats and I still have my computer to post on my blog and visit Facebook, but I checked out some Nancy Drew's from the library. I forgot how much I loved reading those. I got a pennyboard from a friend and I'm learning how to ride it. I've always wanted to be a skater-chic. I'm holding game nights with my sister, and sure, some of them are video game nights, so it's still me using my electronic devices, but I think that's the point Barbie and I are trying to make. Technology is best when it brings people closer, not when it creates a divide.
To be clear, I love technology. This is not me waving a cane in front of my lawn saying "phones are turning us into mindless zombies" and sharing those wild anti-technology images made by artists who then share them on Facebook because that makes sense. I love my phone and my laptop and my Kindle and there is nothing wrong with using them during breaks at work or during downtime at home or while waiting for a bus, but there is something to be said about our collective over-dependence on technology. In the past I've been strongly pro-technology in all varieties, but my latest focus on my own use of my gadgets has left me kind of in the middle.
It started with me seeing posts online telling people to stop electronic-device usage an hour or earlier before going to bed. It's supposed to help you get to sleep better or something, but the main problem I found was "If I turn off all my gadgets, what am I gonna do for an hour?" Whenever we lose power in the house I sleep a lot because as soon as it gets dark I go "Okay, nothing to do, time for bed". That same mentality was what was dawning on me with this 'no tech for an hour' rule. If I turn my gadgets off an hour before bed, I'm just gonna go to sleep an hour early. The thought that I couldn't think of anything to do without my phone or laptop for an hour bothered me, and it led me to focusing more on what I actually do with my spare time. I noticed that I reach for my phone way more than I thought I was! And to be honest, I'm not actually that bad about it and I was still bothered! I put it away for conversations and don't use it during meetings and whatnot, but I realized that all of my spare time was spent refreshing Facebook and Tumblr and if that was boring me I would, literally, put my phone down and pull up the same websites on my computer just out of habit. And that's what I was doing for hours on end. Outrageous, right! I couldn't believe it myself!
I took some time to process this. I'd sort of been convinced that there are only two ways to feel regarding technology: You hate it completely and think everyone needs to stop using it completely, or you love it and think everyone should use it as they please. I knew I wasn't chill with how much I was using my gadgets, but I still recognized their usefulness. Social media is a great place to communicate, my blogs and digital diaries are fantastic places to organize my thoughts, my games allowed me to be entertained when standing in long lines or when I was by myself, and texting is the fasted and easiest form of communication for anything and everything! Technology is great and useful so I didn't think I should give it up completely, but I also obviously felt myself, and maybe everyone, is too connected. I realized from all of this that I fall somewhere in the middle! Technology is great, but everything in moderation! Young people especially are so defensive of our use of technology and that's fine because it is a useful and fun resource, but to a point. We are all a little too attached to our phones! That doesn't mean get rid of them completely, just think about how often we use them and why and cut back in order to make room for other activities or personal interactions besides staring at a screen for hours on end. Technology brings people from around the world together, from digital penpals to gamer buddies, and gives us the ability to interact on a scale never seen before and that's amazing but we're lying if we don't say we a lot of use aren't using it as a form of communications and are instead wasting a lot of our time sitting alone sharing images other people posted as a 'hobby'. And that's a problem we all collectively need to work on. What's convenient for today isn't always what's best for tomorrow.
Again, technology is fabulous, but I really did need to cut back so I could enjoy literally every other cool part of life that I was missing out on in addition to my tech-time. So, I still have my phone to catch Pokemon and send Snapchats and I still have my computer to post on my blog and visit Facebook, but I checked out some Nancy Drew's from the library. I forgot how much I loved reading those. I got a pennyboard from a friend and I'm learning how to ride it. I've always wanted to be a skater-chic. I'm holding game nights with my sister, and sure, some of them are video game nights, so it's still me using my electronic devices, but I think that's the point Barbie and I are trying to make. Technology is best when it brings people closer, not when it creates a divide.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Careers aka The Cookie Conundrum
My sister's ex-boyfriend came to her for advice on an issue regarding his sister. He explained that Cookie has decided to opt out of attending college and is instead going for getting a managerial position at Chipotle where she works. Her reasoning is that she loves working at Chipotle and wants to only work part-time so she has lots of free time to hang out with her friends while also maintaining a leadership position. Frank, the ex, said his family is worried about this decision because Cookie tends to live extravagantly with her friends and he's afraid this life-path is just leading her to mooching off her parents. He wanted to know why she would think that's the life she wants to lead and what he could do to convince her to consider pursuing a genuine career that he feels she has the talents and capabilities for.
A question to ask here is: why did Frank come to Jess with this question? Well it's because Jess and I are currently on the same path as Cookie. We attend University, sure, but our goals are equally small. We want to work part-time jobs because a career just doesn't feel right for us. Jess and I have different reasons than Cookie, naturally. Cookie wants free time, and so do we, but Jess and I have been working since we were 14 years old and honestly we're sick of it. That's a bit of an overstatement I suppose. I love work. I work 3 jobs on campus and I love all three of them. But I love them because doing them still offers me a lot of free time to enjoy the rest of my life. I can't imagine myself getting up at 7am every day to go to work so I can come home exhausted at 7pm and immediately go to sleep so I can repeat it the next day. I did that lifeguarding at Wet 'n Wild one summer and it killed me. Never again. Some people don't feel that way though! My brother, Michael, is a lot like Frank. They both found their passion in a science field - Engineering for the former, Physics for the latter - and are pursuing that full force. They can't wait to work full-time in a career where they're able to get up every day and do what they love and I applaud that. But that's not the path for everyone, and it's not the one for me, Jess, or Cookie.
Frank's fears in this matter, however, stem directly from his belief that his chosen path is the only correct one to be on. His sister does, in fact, live with her parents who pay for groceries, rent, etc., but her 'extravagant lifestyle' is her spending the money she earns from work on concert tickets and day-trips with friends. While it's true that should she choose to follow this path, eventually she'll have to budget her money to pay for groceries and rent as well as fun times, which is something she needs to think about and consider saving up for. The complaints of her 'living off her parents' are actually rich coming from Frank, who his senior year of college began his first part-time job and who's entire university experience and rent was paid for via his parents money. His explanation for this is "eventually I'll have a 6 figure job and won't need their money, while Cookie always will". Putting aside my own eye-roll regarding not paying a cent of your college tuition and not working at all through college, this argument is completely wrong. Frank is counting his chickens before they hatch, as it were, assuming that because he is pursuing a career where people make 6 figure salaries he is guaranteed a 6 figure salary. In this job market? Yeah, sure. Even supposing he does achieve that, there is no saying that Cookie won't be able to live the life she wants off part-time jobs. She may have to economize, but everyone does when they become an adult, that's life. But Frank doesn't want that for her, he wants her to reach a standard he has set for her and the people around him: You go to college and pursue a career that makes good money. He fails to see how anyone could want anything and refuses to listen to why. My brother is much the same way. When I switched majors from Computer Science to a BS in Digital Arts and BA in History he was so distraught. He though I was throwing my chance at a good career away and dooming myself to a life of poverty and the lower class. It took Jess and I getting our own place before him, keeping ourselves far less into debt than him, and showing how all of this is right on track with our 5-year plan for him to understand that we hadn't doomed ourselves, but just chose a different path than him. Frank has yet to experience that with Cookie.
As of yet I see no issues with her chosen path besides it doesn't fit into the mold Frank wants it to and as a matter of fact, this is an ongoing issue with Jessica's ex. As stated before, Jess didn't fit into the above mold either. She is attending college, but her main goal right now is to work at the front desk of a hotel and see where that takes her. She lives with me and if we both work part-time jobs and stick with our current budget and situation we should be set to be content and happy with our lifestyle! Frank never saw it that way. He became increasingly bothered as he realized Jessica wasn't joking about wanting to work in a hotel and claimed their goals 'didn't match up' because he was going places and she wasn't. Degrading and wrong. He is going the direction he wants, and while Jessica doesn't see why he'd want that she respects that it's his choice to attend college out of his parents pockets until he's 30-something before he enters a highly competitive job market to become a Physicist while he doesn't respect her choice to live a simple life that requires some economizing. There are pros and cons to both, and the way I have framed it Jess's life looks like the better option the same way Frank tends to frame his as the better way to go, but it's obviously all a matter of opinion. Both are livable, attainable goals that, done right, are happy lives to lead. Not everyone wants the same things, not even people in the same family see eye to eye on everything and there's nothing wrong with that.
So, what advice did Jess give Frank about Cookie? She told him what you might have gathered from this post: He's thinking about what he wants and not what Cookie does. He's projecting hardships and fallacies in her plan that haven't happened yet and might not just so he can glorify the life he's choosing to live. There are issues with his lifestyle as well, but people need to be given the chance to lead their own lives, whether you like it or not. Not everyone wants a 6 figure salary, despite what ever TV show ever has told you, and not everyone wants a simple life like every YA novel has told you. Maybe Cookie will endure a series of problems due to her job, but then maybe Frank will too. It's not about how well paying your job is, or how large your aspirations are, but about how effective you are at maintaining your lifestyle. Cookie has a job she loves and an attainable goal for the future that will help her become completely independent. Frank lives completely off his parents money and will for the next 10 more years of school as he has no plans to get his own job. One of them is cause for worry, and it's not the future Chipotle manager.
A question to ask here is: why did Frank come to Jess with this question? Well it's because Jess and I are currently on the same path as Cookie. We attend University, sure, but our goals are equally small. We want to work part-time jobs because a career just doesn't feel right for us. Jess and I have different reasons than Cookie, naturally. Cookie wants free time, and so do we, but Jess and I have been working since we were 14 years old and honestly we're sick of it. That's a bit of an overstatement I suppose. I love work. I work 3 jobs on campus and I love all three of them. But I love them because doing them still offers me a lot of free time to enjoy the rest of my life. I can't imagine myself getting up at 7am every day to go to work so I can come home exhausted at 7pm and immediately go to sleep so I can repeat it the next day. I did that lifeguarding at Wet 'n Wild one summer and it killed me. Never again. Some people don't feel that way though! My brother, Michael, is a lot like Frank. They both found their passion in a science field - Engineering for the former, Physics for the latter - and are pursuing that full force. They can't wait to work full-time in a career where they're able to get up every day and do what they love and I applaud that. But that's not the path for everyone, and it's not the one for me, Jess, or Cookie.
Frank's fears in this matter, however, stem directly from his belief that his chosen path is the only correct one to be on. His sister does, in fact, live with her parents who pay for groceries, rent, etc., but her 'extravagant lifestyle' is her spending the money she earns from work on concert tickets and day-trips with friends. While it's true that should she choose to follow this path, eventually she'll have to budget her money to pay for groceries and rent as well as fun times, which is something she needs to think about and consider saving up for. The complaints of her 'living off her parents' are actually rich coming from Frank, who his senior year of college began his first part-time job and who's entire university experience and rent was paid for via his parents money. His explanation for this is "eventually I'll have a 6 figure job and won't need their money, while Cookie always will". Putting aside my own eye-roll regarding not paying a cent of your college tuition and not working at all through college, this argument is completely wrong. Frank is counting his chickens before they hatch, as it were, assuming that because he is pursuing a career where people make 6 figure salaries he is guaranteed a 6 figure salary. In this job market? Yeah, sure. Even supposing he does achieve that, there is no saying that Cookie won't be able to live the life she wants off part-time jobs. She may have to economize, but everyone does when they become an adult, that's life. But Frank doesn't want that for her, he wants her to reach a standard he has set for her and the people around him: You go to college and pursue a career that makes good money. He fails to see how anyone could want anything and refuses to listen to why. My brother is much the same way. When I switched majors from Computer Science to a BS in Digital Arts and BA in History he was so distraught. He though I was throwing my chance at a good career away and dooming myself to a life of poverty and the lower class. It took Jess and I getting our own place before him, keeping ourselves far less into debt than him, and showing how all of this is right on track with our 5-year plan for him to understand that we hadn't doomed ourselves, but just chose a different path than him. Frank has yet to experience that with Cookie.
As of yet I see no issues with her chosen path besides it doesn't fit into the mold Frank wants it to and as a matter of fact, this is an ongoing issue with Jessica's ex. As stated before, Jess didn't fit into the above mold either. She is attending college, but her main goal right now is to work at the front desk of a hotel and see where that takes her. She lives with me and if we both work part-time jobs and stick with our current budget and situation we should be set to be content and happy with our lifestyle! Frank never saw it that way. He became increasingly bothered as he realized Jessica wasn't joking about wanting to work in a hotel and claimed their goals 'didn't match up' because he was going places and she wasn't. Degrading and wrong. He is going the direction he wants, and while Jessica doesn't see why he'd want that she respects that it's his choice to attend college out of his parents pockets until he's 30-something before he enters a highly competitive job market to become a Physicist while he doesn't respect her choice to live a simple life that requires some economizing. There are pros and cons to both, and the way I have framed it Jess's life looks like the better option the same way Frank tends to frame his as the better way to go, but it's obviously all a matter of opinion. Both are livable, attainable goals that, done right, are happy lives to lead. Not everyone wants the same things, not even people in the same family see eye to eye on everything and there's nothing wrong with that.
So, what advice did Jess give Frank about Cookie? She told him what you might have gathered from this post: He's thinking about what he wants and not what Cookie does. He's projecting hardships and fallacies in her plan that haven't happened yet and might not just so he can glorify the life he's choosing to live. There are issues with his lifestyle as well, but people need to be given the chance to lead their own lives, whether you like it or not. Not everyone wants a 6 figure salary, despite what ever TV show ever has told you, and not everyone wants a simple life like every YA novel has told you. Maybe Cookie will endure a series of problems due to her job, but then maybe Frank will too. It's not about how well paying your job is, or how large your aspirations are, but about how effective you are at maintaining your lifestyle. Cookie has a job she loves and an attainable goal for the future that will help her become completely independent. Frank lives completely off his parents money and will for the next 10 more years of school as he has no plans to get his own job. One of them is cause for worry, and it's not the future Chipotle manager.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Tiny Houses aka The Benefits of Poorism
Rich people have perfected the art of making poor people things look glamorous. This act, the essential fetishization of poor people culture, is apparently so rampant it has acquired it's own name: Poorism. I find that a particularly clever and useful title, but the necessity of it is what leaves me with questions. I'm not sure what the appeal is of poorism but wealthy people just adore it. Perhaps the attraction comes from the same feelings which drive many to go camping. The fantasy of a life of simplicity. The difference, however, is that people go camping for a weekend. Rich people engage in poorism as a semi-permanent lifestyle choice.
You'll find poorism in many varieties, from wealthy people deciding to go 'off the grid' and live on the road - which would be a poor people thing if they weren't buying hundred-thousand dollar RV's to go travel in while still hoarding all the millions they possess but aren't using instead of donating it or at least spending it to put into circulation - to discussing how they wish they had been born poor because poor people "have so much humility and strength" and other nonsense that tells you they have no idea what it's like to eat cereal for every meal for three years straight because I came out of that bitter and jaded, but I still tip $5 on the rare occasions I eat out because I know for sure I don't want anyone else to live that way, not because being poor made me overly-kind.
One of the larger trends of the wealthy elite is the concept of Tiny Houses. Arriving arm-and-arm with the Minimalism trend, this housing style has gained a lot of popularity in a very short time. Again, I have no idea what the appeal is. Having a Tiny House has always, to the rest of the world, been a sign of a person who is short on cash and had to make compromises in order to have their own space. These days, however, Tiny Houses have skyrocketed in cost due to their large following of the glamorous elite. If rich people are buying than you can jump the cost up as much as you want! So what used to be an affordable living style for the lower class has now become a much coveted residence type for the children of celebrities.
I sound jaded and bitter in these previous paragraphs, and I usually am, but there is actually a bright side to all of this though it is a selfish one. In the summer before my Sophomore year of college my sister and I were looking for our own small place to rent out happened to find an available unit within walking distance of our campus. We checked it out and it turned out to be essentially a modified shed in the back of a regular house that had been converted into 6 apartments. It had three rooms, a living room/kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom, no internal heating and cooling except a mini-heater and a small window A/C, and a shed connected to the side of the house that was filled with an overflowing collection of junk that the landlords had unceremoniously stuffed there with no plan to remove. And it was absolutely perfect! We signed the lease right then and there and moved in that June. The house is smaller than most classrooms at my university, made of steal so it's always 20 degrees warmer in the house than outside in the spring and summer while also being drafty so it's always 20 degrees colder than outside in the winter, and has had a slew of plumbing and electrical problems, but it's $750 rent a month and for our simple needs the house is absolutely perfect! Not a fan of minimalism or keeping things in boxes, everything we own is on display as tastefully as we can manage on windowsills, bookshelves, and a large 5 year-old Barbie Dreamhouse that has become less a dollhouse and more a curio-cabinet. While the house might not fit a large number of people's standards of living, it does the trick for Jess and I and I think it's just darling!
Remember what I said about the bright side to the Tiny House Poorism? It turns out that my sister and my frugality is all of a sudden trendy! While in years past it might have been embarrassing to say you lived in a modified shed in the back of someones house now it's almost bragging rights to say "I live in a Tiny House". My sister capitalized on that right way, repeating that phrase to anyone who asked where we lived. I thought she was being ridiculous, but people were innately curious about the lifestyle and asked a lot more questions than could have ever been predicted. "Is it comfortable?", "How have you decorated it?", "How many rooms are there?", "Was it expensive?", and most commonly "How exciting! What's it like living in one? I've only ever read about it!" I was almost in shock. It's just like my sister to play up everything we do like we're the style trendsetters of North-East Florida, but in this case she didn't actually have to play up anything! All she did was tell the truth - We live in a Tiny House.
While Poorism is definitely not solving any problems and is absolutely creating more by glorifying the qualms of the poor and causing price rises in what could be effective and efficient solutions to said qualms, in a very small way the glamorized concept of Tiny Houses has done me personally a huge favour. They managed to turn turn the embarrassing house of a cheapskate into the trendy living arrangement of a fashion-forward icon. I think we all know which title we'd prefer, so really, can you judge me?
You'll find poorism in many varieties, from wealthy people deciding to go 'off the grid' and live on the road - which would be a poor people thing if they weren't buying hundred-thousand dollar RV's to go travel in while still hoarding all the millions they possess but aren't using instead of donating it or at least spending it to put into circulation - to discussing how they wish they had been born poor because poor people "have so much humility and strength" and other nonsense that tells you they have no idea what it's like to eat cereal for every meal for three years straight because I came out of that bitter and jaded, but I still tip $5 on the rare occasions I eat out because I know for sure I don't want anyone else to live that way, not because being poor made me overly-kind.
One of the larger trends of the wealthy elite is the concept of Tiny Houses. Arriving arm-and-arm with the Minimalism trend, this housing style has gained a lot of popularity in a very short time. Again, I have no idea what the appeal is. Having a Tiny House has always, to the rest of the world, been a sign of a person who is short on cash and had to make compromises in order to have their own space. These days, however, Tiny Houses have skyrocketed in cost due to their large following of the glamorous elite. If rich people are buying than you can jump the cost up as much as you want! So what used to be an affordable living style for the lower class has now become a much coveted residence type for the children of celebrities.
I sound jaded and bitter in these previous paragraphs, and I usually am, but there is actually a bright side to all of this though it is a selfish one. In the summer before my Sophomore year of college my sister and I were looking for our own small place to rent out happened to find an available unit within walking distance of our campus. We checked it out and it turned out to be essentially a modified shed in the back of a regular house that had been converted into 6 apartments. It had three rooms, a living room/kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom, no internal heating and cooling except a mini-heater and a small window A/C, and a shed connected to the side of the house that was filled with an overflowing collection of junk that the landlords had unceremoniously stuffed there with no plan to remove. And it was absolutely perfect! We signed the lease right then and there and moved in that June. The house is smaller than most classrooms at my university, made of steal so it's always 20 degrees warmer in the house than outside in the spring and summer while also being drafty so it's always 20 degrees colder than outside in the winter, and has had a slew of plumbing and electrical problems, but it's $750 rent a month and for our simple needs the house is absolutely perfect! Not a fan of minimalism or keeping things in boxes, everything we own is on display as tastefully as we can manage on windowsills, bookshelves, and a large 5 year-old Barbie Dreamhouse that has become less a dollhouse and more a curio-cabinet. While the house might not fit a large number of people's standards of living, it does the trick for Jess and I and I think it's just darling!
Remember what I said about the bright side to the Tiny House Poorism? It turns out that my sister and my frugality is all of a sudden trendy! While in years past it might have been embarrassing to say you lived in a modified shed in the back of someones house now it's almost bragging rights to say "I live in a Tiny House". My sister capitalized on that right way, repeating that phrase to anyone who asked where we lived. I thought she was being ridiculous, but people were innately curious about the lifestyle and asked a lot more questions than could have ever been predicted. "Is it comfortable?", "How have you decorated it?", "How many rooms are there?", "Was it expensive?", and most commonly "How exciting! What's it like living in one? I've only ever read about it!" I was almost in shock. It's just like my sister to play up everything we do like we're the style trendsetters of North-East Florida, but in this case she didn't actually have to play up anything! All she did was tell the truth - We live in a Tiny House.
While Poorism is definitely not solving any problems and is absolutely creating more by glorifying the qualms of the poor and causing price rises in what could be effective and efficient solutions to said qualms, in a very small way the glamorized concept of Tiny Houses has done me personally a huge favour. They managed to turn turn the embarrassing house of a cheapskate into the trendy living arrangement of a fashion-forward icon. I think we all know which title we'd prefer, so really, can you judge me?
Thursday, May 17, 2018
The Honeyduo Escape America pt. II
Here we go again! Today was another magical day spent attempting to book flights. Aer Lingus is a airline that desperately does not want to be used. How can some people book tickets the same day they take off? How do they not bite their nails to a nub? Mine are certainly suffering from this whole ordeal and my trip is 2 months away! I've eaten both thumbnails down to the skin and we still have one more flight to book. Outstanding.
We do only have one more flight left to book because we did actually manage to book our flight from Ireland to Paris. This has been a several day process of cards being rejected and codes getting sent to alternate phones, so we opted to just buy from a different site which worked, but came with it's own conundrums. There's a whole process to confirm you flight within 24 hours or you pay a $10 fee. So we, naturally, wanted to confirm right away! Easy-peasy, right? Wrong. We set up our account after we booked the flight, which meant the flight wasn't connected to the account at all. All good, they plan for that and say to just use your email to handle the flight. That's great and all, but the email thing didn't really work as expected. The 'Confirm Flight' button in the email sent us to a webpage that didn't exist. Hence more nail biting. Like I said, this airline does not want to be used. Technically the initial issues were the fault of the credit card company, who were declining the payment because, apparently, booking 2 thousand dollar flights from 2 different airlines and 2 AirBnB's in foriegn countries count as uncharacteristic purchases. Who knew! It was also the issue of the site we were using, which was a third party site that demanded a security code that was sent to the phone attached to the card which was a hassle specifically for us, but who doesn't wanna play phone tag over the course of three days? So, technically, not Aer Lingus' fault, but I need someone to officially blame and they're the easiest target, so that's just how it's gotta be.
We managed to locate the correct confirmation page eventually through some serious scouting and that has officially been handled. We are still not 100% set though because we need transportation from France to Portugal. My mother is pushing for us to take the train, and to be fair it sounds fun. I've never been on a long-term train ride before and it sounds like a hoot, but there's a snafu. We already paid for the AirBnB's for France and Portugal with the assumption that we would be flying in. By plane it takes an hour or so to get between the countries. By train it takes 20 hours. We'd never make our Portugal reservation in time with that kind of travel time. Still, she wants us to just tell the AirBnB person (do they have a title?) that we're going to be a day late and that we'll still pay for the night. It was on $26 dollars a night, but once again, we're 'poor people travelers' and $26 dollars is $26 dollars. That's a lot of Dollar Tree candles-worth of money.
Tomorrow is meant to be dedicated to figuring out the final leg of the flight plans, something which never should have taken this long to begin with but that's not really anyone's fault but The Fates. This is our first time doing something like this, we're going to have plenty of issues, make lots of mistakes, and bite down plenty of nails. In a way, the planning and prepping is an adventure all on it's own. No one ever said adventurous stuff had to be fun, just an unusual and potentially hazardous experience. My thumbs would count this as both.
We do only have one more flight left to book because we did actually manage to book our flight from Ireland to Paris. This has been a several day process of cards being rejected and codes getting sent to alternate phones, so we opted to just buy from a different site which worked, but came with it's own conundrums. There's a whole process to confirm you flight within 24 hours or you pay a $10 fee. So we, naturally, wanted to confirm right away! Easy-peasy, right? Wrong. We set up our account after we booked the flight, which meant the flight wasn't connected to the account at all. All good, they plan for that and say to just use your email to handle the flight. That's great and all, but the email thing didn't really work as expected. The 'Confirm Flight' button in the email sent us to a webpage that didn't exist. Hence more nail biting. Like I said, this airline does not want to be used. Technically the initial issues were the fault of the credit card company, who were declining the payment because, apparently, booking 2 thousand dollar flights from 2 different airlines and 2 AirBnB's in foriegn countries count as uncharacteristic purchases. Who knew! It was also the issue of the site we were using, which was a third party site that demanded a security code that was sent to the phone attached to the card which was a hassle specifically for us, but who doesn't wanna play phone tag over the course of three days? So, technically, not Aer Lingus' fault, but I need someone to officially blame and they're the easiest target, so that's just how it's gotta be.
We managed to locate the correct confirmation page eventually through some serious scouting and that has officially been handled. We are still not 100% set though because we need transportation from France to Portugal. My mother is pushing for us to take the train, and to be fair it sounds fun. I've never been on a long-term train ride before and it sounds like a hoot, but there's a snafu. We already paid for the AirBnB's for France and Portugal with the assumption that we would be flying in. By plane it takes an hour or so to get between the countries. By train it takes 20 hours. We'd never make our Portugal reservation in time with that kind of travel time. Still, she wants us to just tell the AirBnB person (do they have a title?) that we're going to be a day late and that we'll still pay for the night. It was on $26 dollars a night, but once again, we're 'poor people travelers' and $26 dollars is $26 dollars. That's a lot of Dollar Tree candles-worth of money.
Tomorrow is meant to be dedicated to figuring out the final leg of the flight plans, something which never should have taken this long to begin with but that's not really anyone's fault but The Fates. This is our first time doing something like this, we're going to have plenty of issues, make lots of mistakes, and bite down plenty of nails. In a way, the planning and prepping is an adventure all on it's own. No one ever said adventurous stuff had to be fun, just an unusual and potentially hazardous experience. My thumbs would count this as both.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Baking aka Washing Dishes
When I was younger I read those Disney Fairies books and my favourite characters were Fira the Light Fairy and Dulcie the Baking Fairy. I liked Fira cause she was super independent and her attitude totally matched mine, but I liked Dulcie because growing up I was enamored with the idea of baking! I was so excited to grow up and back cookies and cupcakes and cakes and souffles and everything possible. What was wrong with me?
The one thing people fail to mention about baking is how not fun it actually is. Sure, in the movies and t.v. shows and, of course, in the Disney Fairy books it looks great! It's a non-stop fun time that results in you earning a tasty treat! Wrong! The other day I decided to attempt baking cupcakes from scratch. Jess had leftover flour and sugar and assorted baking items from who knows what event from probably months ago that was just sitting in our pantry so I decided to get some baking powder and make some magic. This scheme seemed overly simple. I'm a double major with three jobs, surely I can handle making a batch of vanilla cupcakes from scratch. I wasn't even planning on attempting the frosting, just the cupcakes. Simple as pie, right? First of all, not a single recipe for plain vanilla cupcakes that I found could agree on the order in which the ingredients were meant to be mixed. I know baking is a science given years of attempted meringues, so I failed to see how everyone could do things in a different order and get a decent result. In the end I just had to pick one and hope for the best. I measured, mixed, and made-up everything I had to and it was exhausting. Of note is that all of this was being done in a house that was slowly but surely overheating due to the preheating oven and the small parameters of my tiny house. That quote about human beings and temperatures of survival from Journey to the Center of the Earth was a constant in my mind as I continued towards the promise of vanilla cupcakes.
None of the books I read or movies I watched, however, ever prepared me for the worst part of baking: the dishes. Now, as far as I can tell, most fictional characters let the dishes pile up then have to do them at the end. Most people I know apparently do that as well. I'm not like that. Every time I was finished with an item I washed it, half because I like to be tidy and half because I don't have enough utensils and needed to reuse a lot of them throughout the process. In total I spent more time washing dishes than I did anything else. They just pile up! You even think about baking and you've got a sink full of dishes. And once you bake whatever your baking you have to wash dishes with burnt food attached to wherever you spilled it on the tray or pan and that needs to soak for a bit before you can even touch it. Dishes are the unspoken bane of cooking. It might be fun, playing music while you dance around and painstakingly combine ingredients in the supposed correct order, but you have to stop every 5 minutes to wash more dishes or, alternatively, put it off until the sink and you are both too overwhelmed. There is no in between and there's no way around it. Baking is just dish washing in disguise.
The whole experience took over two hours, far more time than I had planned to spend making a simple batch of cupcakes, but I learned exceptionally quickly that the term simple doesn't apply to baking anything, from scratch or otherwise. In light of all of the above information, I am contesting a previous statement I used: easy as pie. My experience with cupcakes was enough to tell me there is no evidence at all to suggest that 'pie' and the 'easy' belong in the same universe, let alone sentence. Perhaps the phrase was originally created to tongue-in-cheek describe something that is overly difficult but considered simple by laymen. Such a sentiment certainly mimics my own altercation with the baking hobby.
I did, eventually, end up with my cupcakes though! And they were okay. Slightly rubbery and definitely needed more vanilla. I can blame part of their mediocrity on the whole 'first attempt' thing, but I think part of it was my innate internal anti-baking mentality. I wasn't born to bake, despite how much I projected myself onto Dulcie, and without that passion my baking is never going to be anything more than mediocre, which is fine by me. Who'd wanna willingly wash dishes anyway?
The one thing people fail to mention about baking is how not fun it actually is. Sure, in the movies and t.v. shows and, of course, in the Disney Fairy books it looks great! It's a non-stop fun time that results in you earning a tasty treat! Wrong! The other day I decided to attempt baking cupcakes from scratch. Jess had leftover flour and sugar and assorted baking items from who knows what event from probably months ago that was just sitting in our pantry so I decided to get some baking powder and make some magic. This scheme seemed overly simple. I'm a double major with three jobs, surely I can handle making a batch of vanilla cupcakes from scratch. I wasn't even planning on attempting the frosting, just the cupcakes. Simple as pie, right? First of all, not a single recipe for plain vanilla cupcakes that I found could agree on the order in which the ingredients were meant to be mixed. I know baking is a science given years of attempted meringues, so I failed to see how everyone could do things in a different order and get a decent result. In the end I just had to pick one and hope for the best. I measured, mixed, and made-up everything I had to and it was exhausting. Of note is that all of this was being done in a house that was slowly but surely overheating due to the preheating oven and the small parameters of my tiny house. That quote about human beings and temperatures of survival from Journey to the Center of the Earth was a constant in my mind as I continued towards the promise of vanilla cupcakes.
None of the books I read or movies I watched, however, ever prepared me for the worst part of baking: the dishes. Now, as far as I can tell, most fictional characters let the dishes pile up then have to do them at the end. Most people I know apparently do that as well. I'm not like that. Every time I was finished with an item I washed it, half because I like to be tidy and half because I don't have enough utensils and needed to reuse a lot of them throughout the process. In total I spent more time washing dishes than I did anything else. They just pile up! You even think about baking and you've got a sink full of dishes. And once you bake whatever your baking you have to wash dishes with burnt food attached to wherever you spilled it on the tray or pan and that needs to soak for a bit before you can even touch it. Dishes are the unspoken bane of cooking. It might be fun, playing music while you dance around and painstakingly combine ingredients in the supposed correct order, but you have to stop every 5 minutes to wash more dishes or, alternatively, put it off until the sink and you are both too overwhelmed. There is no in between and there's no way around it. Baking is just dish washing in disguise.
The whole experience took over two hours, far more time than I had planned to spend making a simple batch of cupcakes, but I learned exceptionally quickly that the term simple doesn't apply to baking anything, from scratch or otherwise. In light of all of the above information, I am contesting a previous statement I used: easy as pie. My experience with cupcakes was enough to tell me there is no evidence at all to suggest that 'pie' and the 'easy' belong in the same universe, let alone sentence. Perhaps the phrase was originally created to tongue-in-cheek describe something that is overly difficult but considered simple by laymen. Such a sentiment certainly mimics my own altercation with the baking hobby.
I did, eventually, end up with my cupcakes though! And they were okay. Slightly rubbery and definitely needed more vanilla. I can blame part of their mediocrity on the whole 'first attempt' thing, but I think part of it was my innate internal anti-baking mentality. I wasn't born to bake, despite how much I projected myself onto Dulcie, and without that passion my baking is never going to be anything more than mediocre, which is fine by me. Who'd wanna willingly wash dishes anyway?
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
The Honeyduo Escape America pt. I
Buying plane tickets is probably the most stressful thing I've ever done in my entire life. I'm not sure how some people do this on the regular. Those 'some people' are probably rich people who don't have to worry about paying an extra $20 for a flight if you miss a deal by just a few seconds. Poor people have to worry about those sorts of things though. We have to use discount sites with wild layovers and have full discussions about how we're going to avoid having to check any bags despite the fact that we're going to be out of the country for three weeks. It's a wild, extravagant, stressful, and horrifying experience! Why in the world do people do this to themselves! I am never trusting another travel blog again because those people either have never traveled or are rich beyond my wildest dreams and I can't live knowing either of those things. I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm not jealous of those who're rich enough to travel without the minute fears and concerns experienced by us, the poorer of the world, but the world needs to stop acting like travel is cheap. As of right now I have had it completely with Facebook posts that compare the cost of phones and whatnot to the cost of plane tickets expecting us all to understand that 'traveling the world is affordable if you try' or whatever because that is all bull. Plane tickets are not only never as cheap as they label, but it forgets added costs even at the airport, let alone the cost of housing, food, literally everything else that comes with a trip? Like, I sure hope you have a nice 5 hour layover at the airport before you get right back onto your return flight because the only thing you've budgeted is the round-trip part of this experience.
Given all of this in advance, Jess and I have been losing our minds trying to book our flights to and around Europe for our upcoming trip and it's not going well. First and foremost we've never done this before, which is half the fault of our fate cause we were born to a poor family, and partially the fault of our parents who raised two nervous wrecks. I almost had a heart attack booking the AirBnB for Paris. I literally had heart palpitations. I just wasn't built for this kind of pressure! I get nervous spending a gift card at IHOP, why would I be okay approving of a near $200 purchase? That being said, we've got AirBnB's set up for Paris and Lisbon, and flights to Ireland and home from Portugal, so some of this event is planned out, stress ulcer included. Unplanned as of yet is the whole of the Ireland stay, and flights from Ireland to Paris, and Paris to Portugal. It's important to note at this point that the only reason we're going on this trip to begin with is because Jess won a grant to study in Portugal. We wanted to just take a day-trip to Paris while we were there, but somewhere along the way our mother decided we needed to spend 3 months bouncing around Europe, specifically Ireland. That was never gonna fly with Jess and I, who have in our 20 years on this earth only left the country once, and it was to Canada for like 3 days. Not to mention I would like to spend some of my summer at my house that I am paying for, thank you very much. So we were originally going to say no completely, I was sticking with that, but mom got Jess on the phone and wore her down and now we're spending 7 days or so in Ireland. She wants us to meet all our relatives, but she mostly wants us to do it because all our cousins have done it and we're all apparently in constant competition for Best Grandchild, a contest none of us cousins are privy to or care much about. Regardless, the trip is now a 3 week adventure, starting in Ireland where we're going to be staying with relatives in different parts, then to Paris which is what I'm looking forward to, and then, finally, to Portugal for 10 days to do the research we set out to do to begin with. It's all so complicated.
Today was spent attempting to purchase at least one of the inter-European flights but it was sadly put to a halt by a series of unforeseen complications. First the site, upon purchase, needed to text the number associated with the card to confirm the flight, which makes sense for security. Unfortunately, the card is attached to one of my parents phones because Jess and I have never done any of this before and have never needed a credit card. So, we need to get our parents to text us the number. No can do. Mom is MIA most of the day and dad's at work. Once we get mom answering she says the card is connected to dad's phone, which he has with him at work. At 9:00pm mom says she has dad on board to text the response in a timely manner. We get it done, boom, finished! Except no, the card gets declined. We try again, same result. All that work, all day, for nothing. Now, it's important to keep in mind that the site we are trying to use in this scenario is a different one than the site used for our previous flights. The same flight is available at on the previous site we used but we chose to go through all of these different hoops to save a grand total of $46 dollars. Total. We are absolutely out of our mind, we know, but when you're as poor as we are $46 dollars makes a huge difference. We spend $20 every 2 weeks on groceries and we think that's exorbitant. We totally get it from our parents though so really all of this is there fault. They didn't get wealthy before they had us, and then ingrained in us a deep and heart-wrenching fear of spending any kind of money.
This nit-picking money spending is exactly what I'm talking about when I say rich people and poor people traveling are two totally different things. There are a zillion stressors involved in poor people traveling that rich people travelers couldn't even dream up. We watched Barbie, A Fashion Fairytale the other day, and Barbie just legit hops on a flight to Paris within a day. I can't even imagine such a thing, like, that's the fairytale part of this whole story. When I watched that movie previously all of that passed me by as usual and regular, but post-poor people travel planning I was chomping at the bits at the luxury I was witnessing on my screen. That's the kinda rich I wanna get to in my life: Just hop on a plane the day you plan to travel. Until then, however, I'll be strapped to my computer, clearing cookies and refreshing cheap airline tickets.
Given all of this in advance, Jess and I have been losing our minds trying to book our flights to and around Europe for our upcoming trip and it's not going well. First and foremost we've never done this before, which is half the fault of our fate cause we were born to a poor family, and partially the fault of our parents who raised two nervous wrecks. I almost had a heart attack booking the AirBnB for Paris. I literally had heart palpitations. I just wasn't built for this kind of pressure! I get nervous spending a gift card at IHOP, why would I be okay approving of a near $200 purchase? That being said, we've got AirBnB's set up for Paris and Lisbon, and flights to Ireland and home from Portugal, so some of this event is planned out, stress ulcer included. Unplanned as of yet is the whole of the Ireland stay, and flights from Ireland to Paris, and Paris to Portugal. It's important to note at this point that the only reason we're going on this trip to begin with is because Jess won a grant to study in Portugal. We wanted to just take a day-trip to Paris while we were there, but somewhere along the way our mother decided we needed to spend 3 months bouncing around Europe, specifically Ireland. That was never gonna fly with Jess and I, who have in our 20 years on this earth only left the country once, and it was to Canada for like 3 days. Not to mention I would like to spend some of my summer at my house that I am paying for, thank you very much. So we were originally going to say no completely, I was sticking with that, but mom got Jess on the phone and wore her down and now we're spending 7 days or so in Ireland. She wants us to meet all our relatives, but she mostly wants us to do it because all our cousins have done it and we're all apparently in constant competition for Best Grandchild, a contest none of us cousins are privy to or care much about. Regardless, the trip is now a 3 week adventure, starting in Ireland where we're going to be staying with relatives in different parts, then to Paris which is what I'm looking forward to, and then, finally, to Portugal for 10 days to do the research we set out to do to begin with. It's all so complicated.
Today was spent attempting to purchase at least one of the inter-European flights but it was sadly put to a halt by a series of unforeseen complications. First the site, upon purchase, needed to text the number associated with the card to confirm the flight, which makes sense for security. Unfortunately, the card is attached to one of my parents phones because Jess and I have never done any of this before and have never needed a credit card. So, we need to get our parents to text us the number. No can do. Mom is MIA most of the day and dad's at work. Once we get mom answering she says the card is connected to dad's phone, which he has with him at work. At 9:00pm mom says she has dad on board to text the response in a timely manner. We get it done, boom, finished! Except no, the card gets declined. We try again, same result. All that work, all day, for nothing. Now, it's important to keep in mind that the site we are trying to use in this scenario is a different one than the site used for our previous flights. The same flight is available at on the previous site we used but we chose to go through all of these different hoops to save a grand total of $46 dollars. Total. We are absolutely out of our mind, we know, but when you're as poor as we are $46 dollars makes a huge difference. We spend $20 every 2 weeks on groceries and we think that's exorbitant. We totally get it from our parents though so really all of this is there fault. They didn't get wealthy before they had us, and then ingrained in us a deep and heart-wrenching fear of spending any kind of money.
This nit-picking money spending is exactly what I'm talking about when I say rich people and poor people traveling are two totally different things. There are a zillion stressors involved in poor people traveling that rich people travelers couldn't even dream up. We watched Barbie, A Fashion Fairytale the other day, and Barbie just legit hops on a flight to Paris within a day. I can't even imagine such a thing, like, that's the fairytale part of this whole story. When I watched that movie previously all of that passed me by as usual and regular, but post-poor people travel planning I was chomping at the bits at the luxury I was witnessing on my screen. That's the kinda rich I wanna get to in my life: Just hop on a plane the day you plan to travel. Until then, however, I'll be strapped to my computer, clearing cookies and refreshing cheap airline tickets.
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