In which I am reminded of nothing so much as my neighbours
Via la Shaidle, who attaches to this her usual saying – the “poor” today are the rich Jesus warned you about:
During my last night’s shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ring tone.
Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.
She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer. And our President expects me to pay for this woman’s health care?
Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture—a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.
Granted, this is an American example, but bringing it across the border and considering a Canadian equivalent is entirely possible.
In fact, I live next door to it.
Imagine a collection of adults who live under the roof in a kind of rotating schedule; two women and one man seem to be the core group, but at least two other guys seem to swap on and out of the place. (One of them seems to have made it his mission in life to park in our spot every chance he gets.)
There’s at least a couple of kids in the mix, as well; they get dropped off and picked up by a taxi at irregular intervals.
They have two cars, both “K-cars” (one a hatchback). Neither car is healthy; the sedan squeals a sorry cry for a new belt and belches smoke rich with the scent of motor oil, while the hatchback seems to require multiple start attempts to get it going…and yet more such attempts in winter.
Now, repairing a car is not exactly a cheap proposition. This, I get. However, I figure at least one of those cars could be repaired to decent working order — if not replaced entirely (K-car, remember) — for less than the price of the massive flatscreen that dominates their front window, which they purchased upon moving in (I know: I heard one of the women boasting about it to the kids).
And if you add in what it must cost to smoke as much marijuana as they do…well, you get the idea, good reader.
And I’m paying for this all. And you are too, if you happen to be a Canadian taxpayer.
Okay, one of the women appears to have a job (maybe), and the transient guys may also be employed; I am certain that one is. But I am also certain that at least one person (maybe two) under that roof receives welfare payments.
Which, of course, come out of my taxes. One of the guys in the place is also quite “heavyset,” so in a few years those tax dollars are probably also going to go toward rectifying the ruin that McDonald’s has wrought upon his body.
But at least they have a nice television.
Update: Welcome, FFoF readers! Thanks for the Shaidleanche, Kathy!
Hmmm…your neighbours sound familiar to me. Our former neighbours were both on disability. Not sure what the hubby’s problem was, but the wife had, what we referred to as, front yard fibromyalgia. That meant that when she was in her front yard she made sure she used her walker, but in the back yard, with chainsaw in hand, she swung from the trees like a monkey. She had a lot more energy than I did. I often wondered why the hell we were getting up every morning to go to work.
For a minute there I thought YOU AND I might be neighbors, except that you didn’t bring up the 2 pitbulls living in the household across the street.
Hey, I didn’t know you lived in my neighbourhood! :)
The plot thickened last week, actually: I’ve started to see other adults drive up, stay a bit, and then leave again. Most of them — scrawny Caucasians all, it would seem — wear hoodies that I doubt have been washed in weeks, much less pulled down off their heads in any shorter span of time than that.
And then there was the group of five teens that marched into the place during a time that at least kinda corresponded to the lunch break at the high school a few blocks away. They didn’t look like they were there on some kind of community outreach project.
Sassy, it’d be great to be your neighbour, I’m sure…but you’re right, it’s impossible. Not only do I not live in a place where there are houses across the street (there is a mall, however), but there are no pit bulls on the block that I am aware of.
Natasha, one sympathizes. In my darker moments, I often wonder whether I could improve on my monthly bottom line by just doing what those Muslim families in Toronto do (i.e. claim welfare for every person in the house, including the tenant who lives in the basement suite).
Suzanne, I should clarify that the whole neighbourhood isn’t like this; in fact, the neighbours I complain about above are an oddity that only recently moved in. The guy next door to me (on the other side) might like his beer a bit too much, but he’s a pretty genial sort with a good heart…and he’s a hard working patch guy. Down the street in either direction, we have many families, kind old ladies, genuinely disabled people who still seem to be trying to do something productive, students who run a painting business on the side, and other such generally productive types. There’s even a taxidermist about five houses down; damn, he has a neat back yard.
You’ll have to give their names to the Red Star so they can write up a front-page, feature story about living in poverty in Toronto and how they can’t afford fresh vegetables. Well, organic vegetables.
Oh, I half suspect there’s at least one form of organic produce that passes through their place on a regular basis. Indeed, I think they may well be distributors thereof.
I should ask to see their business license.
So, question: in regard to installing some home security…should I get a handgun or a shotgun?
I’d go with the shotgun myself — hand loaded with rock salt.
Ouch, that would sting. Which I suppose is the point.
Unfortunately, Mssr. le Currie, my previous employer had an odd sense of humour, so I should probably admit that the first thing I thought of when I read your comment was not that such a thing would sting, and then badly.
No, the first thing I thought of was this.
And then I thought of the 350lb+ guy that is the male component of the aforementioned “core group” amongst my neighbours.
Next question, then: if three disparate thoughts — a grotesquely obese black guy, a shotgun wound, and cannibalism — have somehow intersected and conflated in your mind, what is the best means to a) cleanse the mental image, and b) wash the bad taste out of your mouth?