--
So, what is the American Dream?
For some, it's getting married, buying a house and starting a family. For others, it's starting a business and steering clear of the man. Some want to be famous. Others simply enjoy their obscurity.
But, that dream seems to be getting harder and harder to achieve.
Over 50 years ago, Americans seemed to get that dream quite easily. Now, with skyrocketing home prices and a minimum wage that hasn't risen in 12 years, George Carlin was right. They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it.
Sometimes, people have had the American Dream all along. I have a cousin who was a shining example. But, she fucked up. A few years ago, she was still living with her parents and was dating a loser druggie alcoholic. One night, the two were in bed and he impregnated her. They ended up with a healthy baby girl who now has two deal with two idiot parents. Late last year, she was home with her daughter when her father started walking up to the kitchen to talk to her. Bear in mind that my uncle is a heavy set man. Anyway, he slipped on the floor, knocked into my cousin who ended up knocking herself into her daughter, who fell onto the floor. Angry and standing in front of the knives, she grabbed one and threatened my uncle. He ended up pulling one in front of her and both pulled out their phones and called 911. The cops came and the two individually told their stories to them. In the end, my cousin ended up going to jail.
Apparently, my cousin went to counseling. There, she claimed that she didn't have a good childhood. When I heard this, my eyes rolled to the back of my head. This is a girl who grew up in a nice, big house, had two parents who had great jobs and a father who worked in the entertainment industry. She met major celebrities, went to at least one movie a week, went to many concerts and so much more.
And she didn't have a happy childhood?!?
I know. I look at those who took their own lives in recent years. Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park was worth millions, had a wife, children and millions of fans around the world. Yet, he battled depression that stemmed from being molested repeatedly as a young boy. For Chester, money and fame could not ease the pain of the past. The same goes with those like Kurt Cobain, Anthony Bourdain or Chris Cornell.
My parents divorced when I was 12 while hers are still together after 43 years. Her parents had good jobs; her mom was a schoolteacher while her dad worked in the entertainment industry, hobnobbing with celebrities. Me? Well, my mom seemed to have a new job every other year while my father was a part-time bus driver. Instead of celebrities, I got to hang out with mean high school kids and got to ride on miles of bumpy-ass dirt roads because he was mandated to drop off white trash. Because I was the first one off and the last one on, it wouldn't shock me if I had the longest school day in the district.
Remember the South Park episode where Stan's parents divorce? His mother, Sharon ends up with a boyfriend who only wants him to do chores and treats him like shit. When he bursts into tears, Sharon scolds Stan and tells him that when she tells him that he's the most-important thing to her, it really means that he's the most-important thing to her after her new relationships and her happiness.
Sadly, Sharon was like my mother.
Just eight days before my 12th birthday, my mom came home with her "friends". I was in my bedroom, playing Nintendo when I was cordoned to come to the living room. My dad told me that she and him were divorcing and I was going with her to live with her friend. My mom's new upstairs apartment was in an old house with only two bedrooms and a bathroom whose curtain didn't close all the way because of how the roof was shaped. The appliances in our tiny kitchen barely functioned, so mom had to buy a hot plate. My parents agreed to 50/50 custody of me. Good, because that apartment had no heat.
You see, my mom's so-called "friend" was a disgusting, 300-pound bitch who worked at a gas station. She obviously had mental issues that caused her to spend more money than she earned. She was in so much credit card debt that she had no choice but to get a roommate. Now, my parents weren't really meant to be, but I look back and wished that my parents could have been more amicable during my teenage years.
You see, my mother married a douchebag who really wanted nothing to do with me, so I ended up living with dad full time. While living with him, he told me that I would always be allowed to live with him, even if I was 30.
But then, he remarried.
When that happened, dad announced that he and my new stepmother were moving to Kentucky of all places. As a result, he wanted me to work on getting along with my stepdad since I was going to tech school at the time. I graduated and, well, 9/11 hit.
It took me a year to get a "grown up" job. Beforehand, I was washing dishes and working at a gas station. I hated both jobs. Then finally, just days after my 21st birthday, I got exciting news: I got a job.
In the beginning, my job showed lots of promise. I was told that I would be getting raises and opportunities to grow. Boy, was that a joke. And to make matters worse, the recession brought on by Dubya's fake wars and tax cuts for the wealthy made it tougher for me to get a better job and raises. I was stuck. Even worse, I was bullied for being broke and living in a cheap apartment... all by the assholes who voted him in.
By 2012, I was in an auto accident, got myself a car that had issues in the beginning (FUCK YOU COURTESY DODGE) and was now paying off three credit card bills per month. Even worse, I had moved to first shift kicking and screaming and was now making less than when I first started because I lost my shift premium.
But thankfully, every cloud has a silver lining.
On New Years Eve 2012, my asshole boss retired. Later, I learned that he was forced out of the company he started because profits were falling. He personally blamed the industry's conversion to digital. Well, he was wrong. For years, he belittled his employees and did everything to make us all feel miserable. Turnover was a disaster and when customers learned about his MO, they bailed on our company. According to insiders at my company, we were just months away from bankruptcy.
Since then, I've gotten raises every year and now, my company just invested millions in new equipment. I've been working lots of overtime and all's well. Those debts I had slowly melted away. However, I was still stuck in the tinderbox apartment from hell.
Of course, the time since my ex-boss's retirement has had its ups and downs. The worst that happened was when the sole relative in Grand Rapids that I had, my aunt passed away in 2018 from cancer and my grandmother just a few months before. Not long before that, I had a horrid relationship with a heroin addict who took $1000 from me. Thankfully, karma was starting to be on my side.
In the 2000s, my mother and stepdad's business near Phoenix failed. Shortly thereafter, she caught him cheating on her. So, they filed for divorce. However, he got busted for drunk driving and begged her for forgiveness. She did and they called off the divorce. Well, after he served some time in jail and was done blowing into some device to start his car, he finally asked for a divorce again. Turns out that he was seeing somebody else and eventually married that person, only to dump her for somebody else. Mom ended up living in a small apartment in Phoenix for a few years. However, her complex was sold and was priced out of her home. She made the tough decision to move back to Michigan and to be closer to me.
But earlier this year, hell really froze over when I learned that I was getting a house.
Yep! I beat the odds and bought a house right smack dab during a time when buying a new home is out of the question for most. It's not a Taj Mahal by any means; it only has one bathroom and the kitchen's quite small. But, it has three bedrooms, a two-car garage and a big, fenced-in backyard that's perfect for any dog owner. So, how did all this happen?
Dad.
It all started late last year when my dad's wife announced that her 98-year-old father was now out of money and needed to sell her family home in Leelanau County. She went up, watched a lot of baseball with her dad and then, he died. After the funeral, she cut contact with my father and come to find out, she wanted to keep the house, which was worth at least $400,000. Now, my dad was stuck in Kentucky with nobody except his dog. Well, we got to talking and one day, he called me and asked if I was interested in buying a house with him. The plan was to sell his Kentucky home and to use the proceeds as a down payment for a new home in Grand Rapids while I took over the mortgage. It would be a win-win, especially for me.
Today, I'm comfortably in my new home. I work during the day while Dad does chores. True, we have our differences. Dad is a neat freak while I'm not. Dad loves Drumpf and hates Biden with a passion, though we both hate Dubya for starting his fake wars. But, anything to get out of that nasty ass apartment.
So, to the four people who care, the question has long been, why the lack of updates?
Simply put, I needed some time away. With me working sometimes over ten hours a day plus Saturdays and putting together my new home, I simply had no time handing out the Bee-otch of the Day. Even more, I'm now spending more time with my father, who can be nosey. A lot of the time, he asks what I'm doing. If he thinks what I'm doing is weird, it turns into a long - sometimes boring - convo about me being wrong. Hell, he gets upset when I go to Costco because our house is small and thinks that everything from there is too big. Then again, I now live farther from any Costco while we have Meijer, Walmart, Aldi (which he hates), Dollar General, Family Fare and others within closer reach. True, but Costco treats their employees better.
The reality of living with someone else is that the rules change. The places you avoided are now the places you go to on a semi-regular basis. Before the move-in, I avoided Menards with a passion. Their founder and owner, John Menard, pays his employees shit wages and is a friend of Drumpf's. Well, we needed new stuff for the house, and politically, Menard is just as bad as everyone else who sells hammers and lawn mowers. At least Menards sells stuff you won't find at Lowe's and Home Depot, like food and jeans.
So now, the question is: is it the end of Bee-otch of the Day and Chuck69.com? Simply put, no.
When I started this blog and site 22 years ago, I promised myself that I would only discontinue it if I were to get married. Well, I'm still not, but now, I have my father to take care of. He wants me to have a life outside of work and I don't blame him. We do a lot of stuff together, plus I see my mom a lot, too.
However, the world still needs a hero.
Right now, we're still fighting COVID-19, even though many of us are 100% vaccinated. Simply put, people believe in lies spread by false sources who all claim that COVID-19 is a hoax and that we can all be cured by some medicine used for cattle. We have people who all believe that President Biden to blame over the catastrophe in Afghanistan, though the truth is that it really wasn't our problem in the first place. We were there only because we've stuck our nose in other people's business for centuries to please the militarial industrial complex. We spend more money on our military over building our nation and keeping food on our table. We have losers who deny climate change even though we had a major hurricane ravage a path from Louisiana to New York.
With that, I'm proud to say that yes, Bee-otch of the Day will continue. However, it might be less than usual because I have stuff to do at home and I need to have a life outside of work, too. The world needs to have a hero during this time of misinformation and lies spread by total assholes. People need to wake up and listen to what's wrong on this Earth.
And that's where I come in, just not as much.
---
Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com
Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
Glad you are back.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Matt!
Delete