k.unwrapped

My mom has been away on business all week so I’ve been going over to her apartment to check on the cats everyday. I didn’t make it over there til late tonight and realized that they needed more food so I walked across the street to the corner store to get whatever they might have. I see a teenaged boy standing in front of the store like he’s waiting for something…but since it’s 20 degrees outside he looks rather suspect. He says: "excuse me miss, could you buy me a loosie?" I laugh and say hell no. I’m not gonna be some kid’s smoking accomplice! He then says: "well I’m 18 — I just forgot my ID." I just shake my head and keep it moving. I’m not sure how I feel about being called "Miss," either.

I’ve just been enjoying my time off this week, as unexciting as it’s been. My last day at the old gig was Tuesday so I’ve just been chillin. I made it to the gym before the after-work crowd, I finally made it to the bank with that bin full of loose change I’ve had for a while (I was hoping for $20 bucks but it ended up being $70…I felt like I hit the jackpot — it went straight to savings of course ), took my ‘interview suit’ to the cleaners, and tomorrow I’m getting a deep-tissue massage (courtesy of a giftcard from my former coworkers ).

My 17 yr old cousin complains that her parents don’t give her an allowance. My response? Get a job. I don’t recall ever getting an allowance. My mom stopped buying me stuff by the time I was 15 so I got off my ass and found a job vacuuming at an office building 10 hrs a week. My next job was at Wendy’s, which I suffered through for a whole year so I could pay for school clothes, class dues, college application fees, prom (Mom & Mr. Dad did chip in though), etc. One night, while I was working the drive-thru, one of the managers printed a receipt of how much money I’d made on the cash register during the first hour of my shift. I’ll never forget it — $567 dollars. I suppose the manager expected me to beam with pride, but all I could think was, yall mofos just made $567 dollars and only paid me $5.15??? From that point, if I had any doubts before, I KNEW I was going to college then.

Of course I won’t make my kid work to pay for things they need (but they WILL work), but I don’t understand how some of these kids are old enough to comprehend that their parents are poor and/or undependable, yet they still have these high expectations. I expect that from a 10 yr old, but not a 17 yr old.