subway cat thinks poverty's torture; gets bitten by vadawg primitive

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4917245

Oh my.

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Mon Jan-26-09 08:06 PM
Original message
 
for those of you who think poverty is not torture..

My first run in with poverty and cold at the same time.

I was having difficulty getting heating oil one year. I found out I cannot get oil on credit because I don't make enough income to qualify for it.Never mind I have no debts and pay my bills, and on time too.By November I had saved up some money maybe a quarter tank's worth but I was told that was not enough for the fuel co. to bother to come out to fill up the tank.

AArgh,the arrogant ASSHOLES!I was pissed.

My roomate was not making enough money to add much to paying for oil,either.Together we maybe had enough for a third of a tank ful.We needed at least enough money for half a tank to get delivery.So we had no heat during a cold snap that came early.And it WAS cold .The teperatures hovered somewhere around 17,20 degrees at night for about a week.

I could see my own breath by the kitchen light.

That night I piled on every blanket I had, it was so heavy,like laying under a blanket of cement,shifting positions was impossible my cats were under there too,I slept with long johns, pants a long sleeved t-shirt a thick fleece lined flannel shirt.I had on 2 pr socks and stocking slippers on top of that.Later I had to add a hat, gloves and eventually a scarf because my nose was freezing off.It was so cold even with all that on me I could not get warm enough to sleep.My fingers and feet hurt,my face hurt,my nose felt like ice except when I exhaled. Every extremity hurt.I would turn on the light look at my pale fingers scared I might be getting frostbite. I was so cold I shivered constantly. It was misery.

The next night we had to figure out something to take the edge off the cold as the wind howled outside. We strategically put candles around the house to keep the cold drafts out.It seemed to help.Was it the placebo effect? I dunno.We were still shivering like hell.But again leaving burning candles going as you sleep is a bad idea.

So I piled on and slipped under the two ton blankets again.Freezing my ass off.

The next night rather than shiver I blew some grocery money , knowing the last week I'd be broke. I got a cheap ceramic space heater.It was a war between food for a week or heat,this time heat won.Plugging it in is when I found out the wiring in this house is substandard.It blew out all the fuses on one side of the house if ANYTHING else was running on that circuit.So we used flashlights to see.

So when I was in my room the space heater helped me but my roommate was left cold.So I told him he could sleep in my room if he couldn't take the cold anymore.He stayed in his room.I got up and tapped the door a few times that night to make sure he was ok.

The next day my roommate found a abandoned container of #2 diesel oil at an old job site he was clearing.He asked his boss if he could have it.Boss let him take it.(this was before oil was insane prices)He got a truck from work and poured it into our tank. It was enough to fill it to the top.It was a pain in the ass to restart the furnace pilot light tho. when warm air came out of the ducts we were overjoyed we cheered!

The cats migrated to the vents.That donated oil got us through the winter or at least the worst of it that year.Having warmth here that year was due to sheer luck and because the boss was kind enough to let us have that oil.

I had no idea Citgo was giving out heating oil for low income households nor had anyone told me about other programs that help with heat costs

Being THAT cold,that it aches and feels like you might be getting frostbite,that is torture.Some are not so lucky in the very same situation I was in and they end up dead.

Sometimes it's the power companies greed directly or a stigma against poverty the oil company has that prevents poor folks from getting the oil we need because we lack enough income to qualify for it.

That's corporate greed at it's worst.

There is so much people take for granted who are not poor.

Like having enough food, having heat every winter,or reliable transportation. Try living without a fixed address,or doing without a safe sanitary place to relieve yourself,no place to shower or no place or money to wash your clothes.

Poverty is really a socially sanctioned form of financial abuse.Poverty is caused by the collective will of the well off,the greedy and the corporate. And like any other type of abuse it HURTS.Poverty hurts, it pins you down, and robs you of your health,sanity,and human dignity.

Financial abuse: is everyday life for people living in poverty.

The worthless freeloading bum, the wily primitive, the one building an ark in the mountains and woods of Tennessee, which he plans to float out into the ocean; the one who's scattered paternity all over the land, and who won't work because it means child-support payments deducted from his pay:

Wiley50  (1000+ posts)      Mon Jan-26-09 08:25 PM
Response to Original message
 
4. I'm in a fiberglass sailboat with no insulation at all

I use two electric space heaters to heat (The old kind with coils and a fan)

They don't heat the whole boat so I hung a quilt across the bulkheads

to close off the bow area that has the vee berth where I sleep.

It works ok down to single digits. Below that.............?

But with less than a 1/4" of fiberglass between me and outside

when the power goes out (and it does often) it starts getting really cold in 5 minutes

When it happens late at night when I can't go over to the basement of the landlord's house to reset the breakers

I spend some frigid nights: exactly as you describe

It sucks

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-27-09 01:42 AM
Response to Reply #20
 
22. Depends

Because in some countries it never gets below freezing there.That helps you survive.It really DOES.

In America poverty is legislated. One example: Is ZONING and public Property/land use laws especially in that uniquely AMERICAN isolating idiocy of land use called suburbian sprawl.Here the poor among the ones who still have jobs,who get stranded out here..They can't raise a few chickens IN THEIR OWN FRIGGIN YARD or have a cow, it isn't ZONED for that.. or in some cases like in ****ing apartments people can't even grow a decent garden because the asshole rich landlord prefers a golf course of grass that nobody can eat..

Neighbors are not aware or don't give a shit about the invisible poor next door.Especiially if it is in the hell of sprawl,You are invisible..Until YOU get a few chickens to survive,or start up a garden add fruit trees or berry bushes then they neighbors you never met come out and have a conniption over it.It's noisy, It invites Rats!!Eek,The deer,skunks raccoons,they are OUT THERE and they are trying to get in MY house!! Don't forget all the birds leaving purple turds on my precious mercedes from all the berries in YOUR thicket etc etc. And of course the wealthier than thou who win the snooty zoning boards over every time.

Poverty sucks whether it is over here or over there it just sucks in different ways. Ask a homeless person about starvation.And all of a sudden it's like the third world right here, only COLDER.

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-27-09 03:31 AM
Response to Reply #31
 
32. No

I am saying poverty hurts everywhere it happens. I am saying poverty over there hurts and over here it hurts.Minimizing Americans who are homeless and freezing does not help the starving starve any less in other countries.Minimizing the starving in other countries does nothing to help the homeless here unfreeze.

It ALL hurts was what I was trying to say.I just refuse to pull out a measuring stick of suffering to measure which poor in which countries deserves more compassion, or help than the others who suffer too, that's all.Because all suffering people deserve compassion .Compassion is not an earned thing based on the opinions of comfy observers regardless of locale,Poverty is poverty.It sucks.

Well, the best way the subway cat can escape poverty is by getting a job.

vadawg (138 posts)      Tue Jan-27-09 03:50 AM
Response to Reply #32
 
34. it sucks, but it aint torture. 

If you think it is then you havent suffered either torture or real poverty, because given the choice id take poverty any day.

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-27-09 03:56 AM
Response to Reply #34

36. I have been tortured

Look up the drug Anectine. Read about what it does.

And I am poor.

Get over yourself.

Yeah, right.

Let's see: guaranteed social services check every month, free medical care, food stamps, lives in a gated community in a house owned by her mother.....

I don't think the subway cat knows shit about poverty, excepting the poverty of selfishness.

vadawg (138 posts)      Tue Jan-27-09 04:05 AM
Response to Reply #36
 
38. Okay you have no idea what torture is if you think side effects of a drug are torture. yeah poor with internet connection, try selling that one around the world.

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-27-09 03:55 AM
Response to Reply #31
 
35. About cruel hands

I didn't create reality to be this way for poor in America or poor in wherever else.

As for the gardens stuff Be aware I was using that as ILLUSTRATIONS for some of the more idiotic types of barriers to self sufficiency that exist in America that poor over here sometimes deal with..

Also You assume alot about me, be honest you never met me.So what do you know?

Your replies drip with resentment that you are obviously projecting on me.

Hunny has life dealt YOU a cruel hand?

Well deal with it.That's what you advise American poor to do.

So you can do it too.Quit projecting.It's annoying.And BTW you are crass and callous.No wonder you fail to get my point. Go away.

vadawg (138 posts)      Tue Jan-27-09 04:01 AM
Response to Reply #35
 
37. lol go away, is that the best you can do what do you want a discussion, or people to look at you as a martyr and hang on your every word. You stated that poverty was torture, i am just simply telling you it isnt, its not anything like torture.

Life dealt me a cruel hand, mayby, i sure as hell would believe it if i had your mindset, but life is what you make of it and ive done a lot with mine and i no longer sleep under the stars every night. You have no idea of what real poverty is, especially if you live in Maryland, lol its hardly downtown Sarajevo, or Albania, or the Congo.

Mayby you are for real, but mayby your a poverty pimp i dont know and your right i dont care.

vadawg (138 posts)      Tue Jan-27-09 04:48 AM
Response to Reply #40
 
41. not poor at the moment, but until i came to america

i was poor, i would even say i was poor my 15 years in the army, but at least they fed me.

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-27-09 03:43 AM
Response to Reply #17
 
33. No you are not sorry for being crass

You would have not offered your faux apology as if it would make up for your callousness about poor americans if you really cared about them.

You appear to me to be just another self righteous resentful middle class college kid hell bent on judging how much someone deserves help or compassion,a justification hierarchy based in your arbitrary definitions of how bad it is for someone else that you do not really know or seem to care to know..

Go over to the third world than, help them,Don't stay here in American comforts,Put your actions where your mouth is, go over there and save them, give them food ,Empty your fridge and pantry too DO it yourself!..

But do not consider yourself "noble" when you minimize the suffering of poor people over here because of your little attitude about why you think Americans are poor enough to suffer or why you think the poor here are not suffering. That's just being an asshole..And that is why you put on the fake apology you were crass on purpose because you wanted to be an asshole and not be called on it.Be honest.You are a bigot.

Poverty sucks ANYWHERE it is.

vadawg (138 posts)      Tue Jan-27-09 04:31 AM
Response to Reply #33
 
39. Now i think your projecting. 

And ill stand by my statement, you have no idea what real poverty is about. College, hell i never had any schooling past the age of 10 and i would never call my upbringing middle class though i guess that some would think we were rich comparetively, but you have no idea and i stand by my remarks.

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-27-09 02:34 AM
Response to Reply #24
 
27. America has become a narcissist fantasy land

Where me first rules and **** everyone else for existing,and keep your suffering away from ME..Mememeeeee.

I Think this culture has made people in general become less pro-social.Less socially cohesive people are easier to manipulate ,control and sell shit to.

Strange I read a survey somewhere (wish I could find it again)where it said only like 25% of Americans have 1 deep freindship,less than 15% reported as having more than one deep lasting freindship,sadly the biggest number of people reported having NO close freindships.

And I know most will scoff but this gradual change to our culture becoming less pro social? It has been engineered,legislated,.For more profits.

undergroundpanther  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jan-27-09 02:43 AM
Response to Reply #26
 
29. Marlyand gets all the shitty weather

Cold as **** in the winter,especially in Late December January to February,Sometimes as Early as October we get below freezing a few days.It's humid sticky killer heat in summer From late May/June to Early September, it's a 97 to 105 degree steam bath.I HATE Maryland weather,it sucks for most the year.

Well, if the subway cat got a job, maybe she could more somewhere where the weather better suits her.

Like she's going to consider that option.

[Rebel]

provis99  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Jan-27-09 04:03 PM
Response to Reply #56
60. everyone in the South?
   
I can't remember anyone in my old neighborhoods in Mississippi who had either central air or heat. In summer, you stayed cool by moving slower, and in winter, you just had to put up with the above-ground water pipes bursting from time to time from the cold. The people who did the best in staying comfortable were the ones who lived in roadside gullies, since it trapped the air around their place and acted as insulation.

 

What are we, nocturnal Sloths? I remember some of the most active days we had were in the middle of the summer. ......in Mississippi.

[BlueStateSaint]

Look, I'd never do this to a real cat (being the "chief of staff" of a cat myself), but would someone please force that waste of sperm to drink a gallon of Prestone?  Please? 

[Chris_]

vadawg (138 posts)      Tue Jan-27-09 04:31 AM
Response to Reply #33
 
39. Now i think your projecting.

And ill stand by my statement, you have no idea what real poverty is about. College, hell i never had any schooling past the age of 10 and i would never call my upbringing middle class though i guess that some would think we were rich comparetively, but you have no idea and i stand by my remarks.

I have no idea who vadawg is and have enjoyed his exchange with the subway cat; however, when I read the bolded text I had a TiT flashback.

[ScubaGuy]

lumberjack_jeff  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Tue Jan-27-09 02:08 AM
Response to Reply #17
23. Each individual in the United States contributes $48,000 to our national product.
   
Edited on Tue Jan-27-09 02:09 AM by lumberjack_jeff
With a GDP per capita of that size, it is unnecessary for people to be forced to go without life necessities. Our problem is fairness. The problem in other countries is something else.

NO DUmmie that $48,000 per person is derived by dividing GDP by population.  The subway kitty produces NOTHING, zero, zilch, zip, nada.  The subway kitty is nothing but a parasite living off of everyone else and will always be nothing but a parasite.

Fair is doing a honest days work and earning the going rate for your labor.

People do fall on hard times through no fault of their own and those people should have a safety net.  Perpetual parasites who sit around all day and bitch about how they don't get enough don't deserve squat.

[mamacags]

Frank not even a snuff video porn crew would hire that freak.  To tell her to get a job is like telling a rock to recite poetry.  I will never ever ever never happen.

[Servonaut]

What the hell is heating oil ?

[Rebel]

What the hell is heating oil ?

Something those Yankee sumbitches up north have to use to heat their homes. 

[Servonaut]

Something those Yankee sumbitches up north have to use to heat their homes. 

That's what I figured. 

[mamacags]

Shut up you guys!   I have heating oil too. 

[Servonaut]

Shut up you guys!   I have heating oil too. 

Sorry mama  :innocent:

But could you tell us what it is and how you use it ? 

I'm serious.

[Lord Undies]

Sorry mama  :innocent:

But could you tell us what it is and how you use it ? 

I'm serious.

When I'm heating oil (olive) it is usually for sauteed mushrooms, onions, etc.  It does tend to heat up the kitchen a tiny bit. 

[JohnnyReb]

What the hell is heating oil ?

#2 diesel fuel......or in some cases #1....which is kerosene.

[VivisMom]

WTF?

Where in MD does UP live? Because I live in MD, and while yes, it gets cold, it's not like it is in places like Michigan or the Dakotas, where it is routinely in the negatives. Talk about exaggerating.

Also...you wouldn't be poor if your sorry ass got up and got a job! Quit mooching off the Americans who actually work and get your own damn money!

[Rebel]

WTF?

Where in MD does UP live? Because I live in MD, and while yes, it gets cold, it's not like it is in places like Michigan or the Dakotas, where it is routinely in the negatives. Talk about exaggerating.

Also...you wouldn't be poor if your sorry ass got up and got a job! Quit mooching off the Americans who actually work and get your own damn money!

No one would hire a fatass, tatooed freak with a ton of metal sticking through it's skin and severe psychological issues. The circus doesn't come around that often anymore.

[VivisMom]

No one would hire a fatass, tatooed freak with a ton of metal sticking through it's skin and severe psychological issues. The circus doesn't come around that often anymore.

True. But there is telemarketing, so the only people who would know it's a fatass tattooed freak with a ton of metal in it's skin are the ones sitting next to it at the phone bank.

[franksolich]

True. But there is telemarketing, so the only people who would know it's a fatass tattooed freak with a ton of metal in it's skin are the ones sitting next to it at the phone bank.

Well, but Shelley-O said during the presidential campaign that "everybody's going to have to work" in the 0bamareich.

The subway cat's just going to have to find a job, regardless of those bodily mutilations.

I doubt the subway cat could get a job as television weatherwoman or tour guide at the Washington Monument, but clearly the subway cat's going to have to take a job, as Shelley-O said, now that the 0bamareich's underway.

It's her own damned fault she's rendered herself aesthetically unemployable, but that still doesn't deflect from her having to get a job, as Shelly-O told us.

I dunno.  Night-time parking attendant at a parking garage, when only few people would see her?  Night-watchwoman in a morgue, where only dead people would see her?  A live target for some indoor shooting range?

Surely there's something, and she doesn't have a choice; Shelley-O said everybody's going to have work work in the 0bamareich, and "everybody" includes the subway cat.

The subway cat sometimes complains of a bad back, but that's not any excuse any more than her tattoos are; there's millions of people, from Russia to India to Sudan to Paraguay with bad backs, who work.

[Airwolf]

WTF?

Where in MD does UP live? Because I live in MD, and while yes, it gets cold, it's not like it is in places like Michigan or the Dakotas, where it is routinely in the negatives. Talk about exaggerating.

Also...you wouldn't be poor if your sorry ass got up and got a job! Quit mooching off the Americans who actually work and get your own damn money!

I wonder where the sympathy was ifor me and my fellow soldiers in Ft. Drum when twice during the winter of 1988 we ran out of heating oil on the weekend in -22 degree weather? And where was the love when alot of us were out freezing our asses in the filed and all we had was the damn foxhole we dug becuase we had to be tactical? You want to know what freezing is try living like us out in the frickin field for a month and you got nothing but what you packed to stay warm.

[Rebel]

I wonder where the sympathy was ifor me and my fellow soldiers in Ft. Drum when twice during the winter of 1988 we ran out of heating oil on the weekend in -22 degree weather? And where was the love when alot of us were out freezing our asses in the filed and all we had was the damn foxhole we dug becuase we had to be tactical? You want to know what freezing is try living like us out in the frickin field for a month and you got nothing but what you packed to stay warm.

Yeah, I remember this one time when my electric blanket stopped working and I had to rely on the 2 kerosene heaters in the RFab tent. 

We signal guys had it pretty comfortable as we had generators all over the site. ...but it was a bitch to set up all that stuff.

[BamaMoose]

So when I was in my room the space heater helped me but my roommate was left cold.So I told him he could sleep in my room if he couldn't take the cold anymore.He stayed in his room.I got up and tapped the door a few times that night to make sure he was ok.

I know it's sadistic, but, I wonder if the Subway Kitty realizes that, in her imaginary world, a man faced with imminent death from hypothermia would rather freeze to death than sleep with her.  And of course she scores bonus points for scratching at the door all night long.  I'm sure Eric Cartman would be proud, " No Kitty...No!!!"

[Chris]

I know it's sadistic, but, I wonder if the Subway Kitty realizes that, in her imaginary world, a man faced with imminent death from hypothermia would rather freeze to death than sleep with her.  And of course she scores bonus points for scratching at the door all night long.  I'm sure Eric Cartman would be proud, " No Kitty...No!!!"

I saw that too.   

Poor guy's freezing his ass off and that bitch won't even let him get a decent night's sleep.

[Duke Nukum]

If poverty in Maryland is torture than the subway kitty would love Club Gitmo.

[mamacags]

I have a furnace that runs on heating oil.  I have a 250 gallon tank in a storage area under my porch.  A truck comes to my house and fills up the tank.  There is a copper line that runs from my tank to my furnace.  The furnace uses the oil to burn to make heat.  The electric fan in the furnace then blows this heat through my house.  Just like natural gas or propane heat but this is liquidy oil.  I love the oil heat.  My house could be 15 degrees and when I turn that furnace on it is warm in my house in minutes.  It blows HOT air out instead of luke warm air. 

This year it will cost me about $800 to heat my house.  That is from last fall until next fall.  Last year oil was more expensive and it cost me $1200 for the whole year.  The only things I don't like about the oil heat is that the price fluctuates too much and that we have to depend on a company to come fill our tank and I keep forgetting to look at the level in it.  We have run out in really cold weather twice now.

[GOP Congress]

underground panther... subway cat?

More like ***** sub...

[Vagabond]

I made a mistake on one of my hikes in the Huachuca Mountains.  I planned to start from on post Fort Huachuca, camp near Miller's peak and get picked up at Coronado pass the next day, this was in early April. 

Well, I got to my camping spot late and as the light failed I saw clouds blowing in over the Sierra Madre from the West.  That night, I slept in my two man tent, inside my Army issue sleeping bag.  When I woke the next morning 6" of snow had fallen and it was around 20 degrees outside the tent.  UP doesn't know how to survive a little cold, that makes me doubt her claims.  The only hard part for me was trudging through the snow and snow blindness.  I was three hours off of my schedule.  I did take some neat pictures though.