Wednesday, November 7, 2012

lazy no good piece of shit.

you know what i'm sick of hearing? "well where do i get in line for my free money?!" because obviously since President Obama has been re-elected not only has the world gone to hell, but we get to resurrect this tired mantra by "those guys". yeah, they say it. i said it. get over it.

so here is a little story. once upon a time there was this strapping young man and he got a job at a Dairy. yes, a dairy. its a place where you get your milk from. you see all this milk gets packaged up and put on trucks and people drive around and deliver it to your store. crazy right? well this 20 year old kid had never dreamt of making this kind of money, it was glorious. the only down side was, well milk is fucking heavy. i mean, have you ever grabbed a gallon of milk along with all those bags of groceries and by the time you get to the door you are like "damn milk is heavy". Well put 4 gallons in a crate. and then stack 6 crates up on top of each other. then fill a truck full of those stacks of crates of milk and spend 12-15 hours a day taking them up and down ramps, stairs, hallways. do it in the rain. and the snow. and the sleet. and the hail. do it when you have the flu. do it when you have bronchitis. do it while your wife is in labor. because you are the milk man. and no one cares what else is going on. the milk has to be delivered.

sometimes your milk stacks fall over. sometimes the milk cartons break and get all over the place. the floor is slippery. sometimes you fall. sometimes you fall in the truck. sometimes you fall on the ground. sometimes you fall off the lift of your truck. sometimes you fall off the dock. sometimes you get hurt. sometimes you get hurt so bad you are black and blue. but the milk has to be delivered and you cant take that hit to report you are hurt. so you suck it up. you're young. you're in your 20's. you heal. you think...

you come home at night exhausted. you peel those wet socks off your feet, take a hot shower. play with the kids. kiss your wife. fall into bed. and do it again. day after day after day after year after decade.

somewhere down the road, after thousands of miles spent driving and hundreds of thousands of pounds of milk later, your back is fucked up. and you go to the dr. and they do xrays. and take mris. and schedule you and schedule you and schedule you. and no one really has an answer for why you cant sit. or stand. or lay down. without severe pain.  and they keep sending you for tests and you still dont get answers and your 3 months of disability (and your insurance) are winding down. and you beg for faster appointments. beg for answers. no one gives a shit. you are now, unemployed. and broken.

you have to be insurance free for 6 months before you can apply for insurance through the government. medicaid. it takes months, almost a year to get qualified. to supply all the necessary paperwork. by the time you have insurance again you have fallen. multiple times. fallen in the street and crawled to your house.

now you start the process all over again. and finally get a surgery. but guess what. your fucked. because your nerve damage is so bad now, from that disc that ruptured during your long wait. you are now, permanently damaged.

you will no longer go camping with your sons. you will no longer go hiking. you can barely sit through a movie. but you cant really afford movies anyway. you walk with a cane. you sometimes fall down because your nerves dont tell your legs what to do properly. you are never, pain free. ever.

Now. I fully recognize that there are things in this story that could have changed some outcomes. my ex husband could have sought medical treatment every time he got hurt. (he did visit a back dr many times over many years and received treatment along the way)  We could have saved better in our 20's. Instead I chose to stay home and raise our children. so money was always tight. we figured we'd save better when the kids were older and I went back to work. and then we got divorced. i really fucked us both with that one . . . he could have.  what? come up with 30, 40, 50K to pay for the surgery himself? yeah, i suppose if we had planned for that that would have been a good idea. we wrongly assumed thats what we had paid for health insurance for all those years . . for the one off cataclysmic event.

My kids receive government money. my ex husband receives government money. I dont know how much. it is based on his payments into the system all those years he was working. i do know he lives mean and lean. i also know that for over two years we were all hanging in there by a thread. i know there are strict guild-lines on how the money can be spent, and he keeps every receipt for every penny that is spent. if i use any of the money for things like clothes, or shoes for my kids, i have to make sure that receipt ends up with him so he can make sure that when he is audited, he can account for every penny. ...

i know he will never take a vacation. he can neither afford it, nor can his body tolerate it. he will never do a lot of things my strong, hardworking husband could once do.

so when you ask me. when you with your able body asks me where you can get in line for your "free money" - because you think thats a funny way to say you arent happy about our president . . .  its worse than a slap in my face. its a slap in the face to MY FAMILY. to the man who worked his fucking ass off so i could be home with my children. a PRIVILEGE.  one we never took lightly.

you can say "if you need money - get a job!" I ask you. what job? what job would you suggest for him? He can not sit, stand or lie for extended periods of time. like an hour. you have a job he can do? HE WOULD FUCKING LOVE TO WORK. He would love to not be stuck. He stays as active as his body lets him. What job would you suggest.

he is one. one of millions of stories of people who genuinely and truly and need help.  do we hate them so much. do we rue them so much, all of them? you can say oh no. i didnt know about your ex husband. i mean the OTHER ONES.

fuck you.
just fuck you. if you cant have some empathy for humans and trust that maybe, just maybe there are people in the world that you cant even begin to relate to. then fuck you.


3 comments:

  1. I really think that some of the anti-health reform sentiment is from people who just don't want to even think about how easily this kind of problem could happen to them. If they blame the victim then it separates them from the potential of it happening to them. Of course, there are also the people who are just plain assholes who don't think there's a problem because the only people they socialize with are wealthy well-insured people.

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  2. Yes. Fuck Them. Indeed.

    Chad worked his buns off for years, destroying his body- pushing past limits that he felt, but knew he needed to provide for us. When he was diagnosed with Lupus- it was a haul. a LONG HAUL to get any help whatsoever. We had to LOSE OUR HOME. OUR CARS. OURSELVES. and then slowly rebuild. Only to break even more with each step through the process. It has been 6 years sine we started down this road and it still sucks. The money that the government pays him is minimal and doesn't amount to much. But, it does help. He wants to be well. He wants to work. And he is already depressed and angry at himself over a disease that he cannot help- Assholes bitching and moaning and calling him out as lazy, etc only prove to make him feel even worse. It is infuriating. I think that people who are lucky enough to have never had to deal with such issues as disability, foreclosures, etc really just cannot understand the pain and suffering involved. It isn't like these people "in need" are sitting back on easy street sucking down beer and bon bons happy with their lives... Fuck off!

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