what 'DO YOU THINK' about this?

a.k.a.-is this you?

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from:www.searchlores.org

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As you can clearly see from my $220 Fubu jacket and $95 Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt, I could not possibly be poor.

As you can clearly see from my $220 Fubu jacket and $95 Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt, I could not possibly be poor.

By Manny Lucas

Just because I happen to live with my four brothers and sisters in my mom's two-bedroom South Side apartment, work at Taco Bell(1), and don't have a car, some ignorant types assume that I don't have much money. But, as you can clearly see from my $220 Fubu jacket and $95 Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt, I could not possibly be poor.

The kind of name-brand clothing I wear is very expensive. See these Karl Kani jeans? Eighty-eight dollars. Would I spend that kind of money on a pair of jeans if I were poor? Of course not. If I were poor, I'd think $88 was way too much to spend on a pair of jeans that, with the exception of a tiny Karl Kani logo embroidered on the front right pocket, are practically indistinguishable from a plain old pair of $25 Levi's. But I don't think that's too much to spend because, for a well-off person like myself, money is no object.

Sure, I make $5.90 an hour at Taco Bell, but that couldn't possibly be my only source of income, could it? If my total weekly take-home pay were only $175, why in the world would I spend practically that much on a Nautica sweater and pair of Timberlands? That would mean I'd have spent 40 hours slinging Chalupas just for that one shopping trip to the mall. That'd just be plain stupid. So, obviously, I must be rolling in dough. And I am. You can tell by my special non-poor-people clothing.

Yes, it's obvious that I'm not like all those other losers who are working at Taco Bell and living with their moms. No, I'm a player. Take, for example, my socks. If I didn't have money to burn, I certainly wouldn't spend $22 for a pair of basic white athletic socks with a teeny-tiny Calvin Klein "CK" on them, would I? Of course not. I'd need to save my cash to get my telephone reconnected, or to pay off my loitering fine, or to help out my mom with the grocery bill. But, luckily, I'm not in that situation, and everyone knows it just by looking at my clothes.

I'll admit it: A lot of people here on the South Side are poor. In fact, most of my relatives are poor, including my mother and all my siblings. Knowing that, you might assume that I don't have that much money, either. But just look at these Lugz boots. And look at this Sean John baseball cap. They prove that I'm in an entirely different social class from my relatives, as well as from all those suckers who ride the bus with me every day.

Except for Angela, that is. I met her Monday on the C-route. She clearly belongs to a higher class of people like myself. I could tell because she was decked out from head to toe in expensive gear: Fubu jersey, Pepe jeans, and Fila shoes, not to mention a big gold chain around her neck. Angela was holding her two-year-old son, but he obviously isn't placing much of a financial strain on her, as he was wearing a complete matching Abercrombie & Fitch outfit, which must have cost around $140. Recognizing how much Angela and I had in common, I asked her out on the spot. We went to dinner at Denny's(2) that very same night.

Notes for non-American readers

(1): Taco Bell is a "el cheapo" chain, famous in the States for its lousy salaries and rotten "mexicanish" meat. Servants' uniforms have been selected from a pile of clothes that Ronald McDonald thought was a bit garish.

(2): Denny "Restaurants". Places where the service is miserable (and the burnt toasts are not much better): unless you cherish cold eggs, served badly by someone named "Madge", wearing support hose, who calls you "hon" and unless you enjoy inhaling massive amounts of second hand smoke, you should avoid such places.

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DISCUSS

????

payday?

its a nice mask.

I love people who own

$500 jackets.

$400 chains.

$20,000 cars.

Brand new TVs

Pets

etc etc.

But yet can't afford to stock their homes with food, buy a home, or afford to pay for their kids to have backpacks.

it's not their fault, though. i used to blame individuals. i used to think that they were the ones who made the decisions to buy or do things that were out of their means.

i no longer blame the indiviidual. where do you think they got the ideas? not the rappers, the rappers and pop stars get their ideas from the same place, but it's not their fault, either.

who's fault is it? (rhetoric)

what i love best are the $45,000 rides i see parked in front of a $25,000 house. or even better, a $15,000 mobile home.

invest in something that maintains or gains value, for real.

you can make more money in a year workin at taco bell than being a pilot for a airliner..it was in michael moores book

Originally posted by willy.wonka

you can make more money in a year workin at taco bell than being a pilot for a airliner..it was in michael moores book

c'mon, willy. you don't believe everything that you read, do you?

Jimmy says he loves straight edgemehhh blehhhhh mehhhhhh around for a ride home when mehh blehhh mehhhh I love everyone as long as youre not a dick mehh blehhh ehhhh.

Originally posted by crave

what i love best are the $45,000 rides i see parked in front of a $25,000 house. or even better, a $15,000 mobile home.

 

invest in something that maintains or gains value, for real.

it's really not their fault that they feel they have to have a status symbol.

Originally posted by willy.wonka

you can make more money in a year workin at taco bell than being a pilot for a airliner..it was in michael moores book

It was in Michael Moore's book?? Well shit, then it must be true.

Originally posted by Rick Ta Life

Jimmy says he loves straight edgemehhh blehhhhh mehhhhhh around for a ride home when mehh blehhh mehhhh I love everyone as long as youre not a dick mehh blehhh ehhhh.

i know this person who owned some rental homes...one of these homes contains some crackheads.

ya see, my friend gets tired of trying to collect rent, so he sells three of the four houses he owns (the ones he rents out) but he keeps the house that contains the crackheads.

he says they've become like pets to him. he goes over to their house to try and collect rent every month, and they give him shit (lies, excuses, and what have you) but it's like a game to my friend.

a game he enjoys so much that he lets them get backed up on rent, just so he can entertain himself by going over and hearing the same stuff they tell him...the excuses, etc.

edit: spelling

i dont know man.. my brother works at pizza hut and that guy is bankin for some reason... in a years he's bought a nice mustang, turntables bowflex, entertainment center, computer, sounds for his car, nice clothes, able to go out and drink when he wants, pays my moms bills, a shitload of computer programs, going to school and lookin into setting himself up with a house in hawaii..

whats crazy is that guy has a lot of money to show. he's not broke.

maybe mike took the cheapest airline.

Living in the US makes it very possible to wear name brand clothing for very cheap with stores like marshalls, tj maxx and ross.

so no wearing designer clothing is NO indication or how much money you have (or dont have)

edit

willy:

well, it's all in how you spend your money.

is he a server?

fatbastard: what are people saying with expensive name brand clothes? what are they really trying to say?

"i appreciate nice things"

"i dress like this b/c i can afford it."

wonka, that makes perfect sence to me..think about it? when your working you dont really have time to spend your money so it accumilates and when you have worked hard for it your generally more selective in what you buy, its harder to spend.

I had a friend who used to work at a sign comapny, he was on casual and his boss was raping him for hours, what his boss did was highly illegal, he would work from literally 6am to 9-10pm, i remember he called me to meet him somewhere at 1 in the morning as he just got off work, had a bite to eat slept on my couch then went got up at 5 to do it all over again. getting paid in cash meant no taxes so that $13 a hour he was getting added up, and he was on so many hours he had no time to spend the money.

fatbastard: yes, that does make sense, but if you're making enough money with no time to spend it, wouldn't it make much more sense to stretch that money out? investments, etc.???