On March 18, 2013, the Mrs. and I watched American Winter on HBO. If you are unfamiliar, it is a documentary about poverty in our United States, filmed in Portland, Oregon, using eight diverse families to make up its storyline.
The eight families are all dealing with various problems: A single mother—her husband passed away—lives with her son in a garage. A windowless, one-car garage. A woman whose daughter needed medical treatments struggles to pay the $49,000 bill. A 50-year-old man who once pulled in a $50,000 annual salary is laid off, leaving him to care for his Down syndrome son with no income. The myriad stories all carry tragedy within their covers.
These are not people who lived large and were caught unaware by the economic downturn; they didn’t buy mansions in the housing boom when rates were low and get underwater when the variable rate shot up. They live in trailer parks, impossibly-small looking homes, and apartments, and yet they struggle to put food on the table and keep the electricity on.
As I watched, I was taken to a time in my life I don’t revisit often: my very early childhood, when my family was on food stamps. Because of this upbringing, I am incredibly thrifty when it comes to money. For example: I have been eying a $28 Batman shirt on Amazon for several months now. It is something I can easily afford, and yet I don’t buy it. Many thoughts that go through my head as I window-shop it repeatedly, first and foremost being: “You have several Batman shirts already, fuckhead.” Above and beyond that is the idea that spending $28 on a T-Shirt is just silly. I almost bought it once, but after clicking “Add to Cart” became irritated by the fact there was a shipping charge. The Mrs. and I are members of Amazon Prime, which generally means 2-Day shipping is included free. Unfortunately, in the case of my Batman shirt, the seller was a second-party vendor, meaning our perks didn’t apply. “Well, fuck them,” I thought as I deleted my order. I was pissed enough I was spending twenty-goddamn-eight dollars for something I didn’t need, the fuck if I was going to add $5 on top of that.
Again, I can afford the $5 shipping fee, but it was a convenient out for me, a way of being mock angry instead of dealing with the real issue swimming in my subconscious: fear. In almost every situation I have an opportunity to spend, the niggling little thought in the back of my mind screams, “What if I need this money for something more important, later?” This idea has swelled my bank account, as I find saving greenbacks to be a better use of them than “making it rain.”
My point of view is also, unfortunately, one that makes me see poverty from a sometimes-cruel angle. When the documentary showed a family struggling to pay their electric bill—the husband/father unable to find work—my first thought was, “Well, why didn’t he hoard the cash he spent on getting those tattoos? That could have been money to pull from a bank account right there.”
I am not proud of such moments, but do admit they freight train through my mind uncontrolled.
If marriage is a system of opposites and balance, it makes sense that Lydia is the yin to my yang, as she can spend money as easily as she sneezes. Our 2013 tax return was higher than either of us expected it to be, and before you could say “Blueberry pancakes” Lydia had her sights set on American consumerism.
On Sunday, March 17th, we went shopping for a new dining room table. There’s nothing wrong with our current dining room table, but Lydia doesn’t like it. That alone is enough of a flaw for her to want it replaced.
“It’s too big for our dining area,” she claims. “I’m tired of always bumping into the damn thing.”
At the furniture store, my input was desired, but what I was willing to give was all-too-honest. “What do you think of this one?” was responded to with “I think the table we have at home is fine.” I wasn’t saying it in a dickish or rude tone, more a mix of confused-we’re-spending-money and matter-of-factly.
Lydia eventually settled on two tables she liked: a high-top and standard-height. I liked the high-top, she liked the standard-height. Because she is a generous woman who likes to placate her pouty husband, we ended up ordering the one I preferred.
And that was that.
Until we started watching the documentary, and I saw eight families watch their lives disintegrate from underneath them in a manner of mere months. Every story contained the arc from loss of job, through debt, to desperation. The mantra repeated throughout was: “This could happen to anyone.”
As trained by my childhood, I said to Lydia, “This is why we shouldn’t buy tables we don’t need.”
Lydia was frustrated with me, and rightfully so. She thought on it a minute, then said, “You know what I was thinking while that documentary was on? I was thinking how good it made me feel that every year I donate so much time to the food pantry I support.”
That, of course, is why I married her.
Everything in life is perspective, and if Lydia tolerates me long enough, her positivity and kindness might just shine through the doom-and-gloom scenarios I always default to.
And maybe, just maybe, I can nudge her a little toward my ant-like behavior, and help her dial back her grasshopper’s song.
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