From A to B: A Play in One Scene

I overheard this conversation today. What I didn't hear was how it began, so we may never know what important point was never made.

A: It does what? It whats the problems of development?

B: Adumbrates. It adumbrates the problems of development.

A: Adumbrates?

B: Yes, adumbrates. It means to...

A: I know what it means. But who says that? Who says "adumbrate"?

B: I do. I say "adumbrate."

A: No one says "adumbrate."

Not sure why this struck my fancy. But it certainly must be in the running for the much-coveted "Conversation That Employs 'Adumbrate' Most Frequently."

I with A--no one says (or should say) "adumbrate."

Poor Old Charlie

It's too expensive to be poor in this country.

This post is about being shocked by an increase in busfare.

Which I realize sounds a teensy bit like overreacting. I mean, in light of all the ways this country finds to screw the poor, a rise in busfare doesn't really rate.

But the way the transit system here raised their rates is absolutely symptomatic of the structural and institutional strategies by which the poor get shafted in this country (and then blamed for it).

Consumer economics are getting increasingly Costco-ized. Costco (and other big box stores) offer deep discounts to people who can afford to buy in bulk and who have cars in which they can haul their loot away.

That is to say, the deep discounts go to the people who don't really need a deep discount.

Ditto groceries stores. I remember going to a lecture once given by an anthropologist who studied urban garbage. He noted that the garbage in poorer neighborhoods contained more food items from expensive mom n' pop stores and convenience stores. His conclusion was that poor people were poor managers of money. I guess he didn't notice that in lots of these neighborhoods, there aren't any grocery stores within walking distance. The more expensive stores, with the least wholesome items, are often all that's available. So you have to overpay for Beef-a-Roni and then get harangued about being irresponsible and single-handedly causing the obesity epidemic.

Ditto banks. For someone with access to banks, it's almost inconceivable that someone would actually pay 10% of their paycheck to a check-cashing place. But if you can't afford a minimum balance or your can't get away during 9-5 (and banks are scarce in poor neighborhoods), well, you're (once again) screwed.

Ok, back to my bus shocker (it's SHOCKING):

It's been advertized for the past month or so that the fares would go up from 90 cents to $1.25 after January 1st. Now, that's an almost 40% increase, but ok. There hasn't been a rate hike in several years--it's probably time (the fares are really pretty reasonable compared to elsewhere).

BUT, I get on the bus this morning to discover that it's $1.50 if you are paying cash. The subway fare went up 45 cents with a pass, but 60 cents if you pay cash. That's a 67% increase. They have new scannable cards one can buy to avoid the cash penalty. If you can figure out where to get them. There haven't been any signs at all indicating where one can get them.

And, of course (and as always), it's cheaper yet to get a pass. So if you can afford to lay out your transportation budget all at once (passes are only available at the beginning and end of the month), ok. If not, guess what? You're screwed. Not everyone can afford the $60-$120 cost of a transit pass at the beginning of the month. To put it in perspective, if you make minimum wage, that's between one and a half and three 8hour shifts a month. And anyone who doesn't know how much $25/month can mean has never been really poor.

So the folks who can least afford the fare increase are the ones who will be paying the most of it.

Good old Costco-logic.

But it gets worse. Because they hadn't told anyone that there would be a cash penalty, no one was prepared (which caused huge delays and lots of yelling and the bus drivers), so now people get stuck essentially paying double fares for today if they get a pass. And you can't just get a pass anywhere. So the people who have the least time and mobility are again the least able to access the savings.

But it gets worse. How did I find out where one can buy the passes? Well, I went online. If you don't have a computer and internet access? Guess what? You're screwed.

Now, I understand that this cash penalty amounts to no more than a $25 a month increase (75 cents twice a day, five days a week). To most of us, an extra $25 a month isn't going to make or break us. For someone making minimum wage, though, that's more than half a days work. These are also the folks who have to make the most exchanges, because the poor and blacker the neighborhood, the less likely it is to be well served by public transportation. This is the downside, I guess, to a transit system that is used equally by rich and poor--service tilts richward.

The way the increase was implemented amounts to a poverty tax--it gets displaces the bulk of the fare hike onto those who are most vulnerable. And it is symptomatic of the increasingly regressive systems (both public and private) we have for extracting the maximum amount of cash out of the poor.

Poor Old Charlie--I don't think he's ever gonna get off that dang old train. I hope his wife made lots of sandwiches...

UPDATE: It gets worse. They no longer give transfers if one in pays cash. So if you need to take two buses to work, you're really screwed. A day's transportation, which a week ago cost $1.80 now costs $6.00.

Update update: major props to the bus driver today who brought along a stack of cards and tried to explain to people how to use them.

Happy New Year

Warm wishes to one and all.

This poem's not in the spirit of the day, perhaps, but I'm at work and a little grouchy. So here's a rant from one of my favorite misanthropes, Philip Larkin:

Toads

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losers, loblolly-men, louts-
They don't end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets - and yet
No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney
My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.

I don't say, one bodies the other
One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,
When you have both.

He's such a grump! I think I'll drink a beer and watch some football-STAT-before I'm Mr. Bitter-and-Resentful.

Especially since I actually like work, and think that work is a central human value and all that.

And especially especially since I am no Philip Larkin. (Nor was meant to be?)

Go Wolverines!

T-U-B-B-Y, I Ain't Got No Alibi

This seems to be the week of the pointless autobiographical post over here at This Blog. Well, so be it. The blogosphere has enough pompous pontificators without me, I reckon. So here's another pointless autobiographical post:

I can ignore the facts no longer. I have turned into quite the little butterball.

I suspected that there might be something amiss when my wife started sleeping on the couch. I told myself that it was just because she's been working late. And I did detect a bit of a paunch this summer. But what really forced me to face the truth is that my pants don't fit. At all.

The whole situation is complicated by the fact that I am perhaps the world's worst dresser. I mean, I haven't won a contest or anything, but I've got to be at least in the top five. I buy most of my clothes (apart from underwear and socks) at the Goodwill, and I get about half of those at the dollar-a-pound sale.

I then wash them vigorously several times in very hot water with lots of soap, and I'm good to go.

I've been doing this most my life and it works pretty well. I was the youngest, so I only ever wore hand-me-downs and it never bothered me. Thank god my sister was a tomboy, though, or I would have gotten beat up quite a lot.

My parents probably wouldn't have accepted "But it's a dress," as an excuse to not wear perfectly good clothes. "Perfectly good" was their favorite phrase. Food was often described as being "perfectly good," even when it clearly wasn't. "Brussel Sprout Surpise" was never "perfectly good." Surprise! It's Brussels sprouts!

The best clothes came from my cousins. Once a year or so, they would bring by a plastic garbage bag full of clothes. Score! It was from one of these bags that I acquired my H.A.S.H. jeans, which were so freakin' cool the cucumbers were jealous.

I think this is part of the attraction to the dollar-a-pound bin. Bringing home clothes in a plastic garbage bag has the thrill of adventure and possibility.

So, I've carried the habit into my adult life. It's served me well; although better when I lived in the West than in the East, where people actually wear coats and ties or even suits. Suits! (My first day out here I thought someone in department must've died and that everyone was going to a memorial service.) But I don't fuss too much; I still prefer the bargain bin. It saves me both money and time. I just grab a bunch of clothes, and if it turns out I don't want something--well, I only paid 67 cents for it.

Ok, but it turns out that this only works if you're thin. If you're tubby, you run into two problems: the most critical one is that only other skinny guys seem to give their clothes to Goodwill. What's up with that? The other is, if you're a little tubby and you're wearing too-tight clothes from the dollar-a-pound bin, you look like a crazy person. Or worse, an aging indie rocker. It's sad but true.

Now, I am looking at our last grocery list:

Kale
Apples
Soy milk
Brown rice
Onions
Leeks
Watercress
Soap
Edamame
Stamps
Clementines
Lentils

How the hell did I get fat? The kale??? Too much watercress???? Well, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that "the gym" has become entirely notional. The gym is a place whose theoretical existence I do not deny. And very little more. Also, it's cold so I've been driving instead of walking.

Also, I eat pizza from the canteen more days out of the week than I should. Shhh...don't tell.

So for the New Year, I am going to stop being so tubby. Because I don't want to look like a crazy person. And I really don't want to have to start going to actual stores and trying shit on just to clothe myself.

So come back to bed, honey. I did some sit-ups.