Yo!

I haven't really had much to say this week, to be honest. I've just been working, wearing as many hats as they choose to give me (metaphorically, dumbass) and trying to get to bed as early as possible.

We watched a teriffic show on TNT -- Morgan Spurlock's (Super Size Me) got a weekly documentary show that started this week called 30 days. The show's idea was to put people into strange situations for 30 days, to see what they learn.

This first show was a sort of "How the Other Half Lives", in which Morgan and his fiancee try to live for a month on minimum wage. I think what struck me the most is, as pointed out in an article in Salon, that it's really expensive to be poor! Morgan had to pay a deposit for his electricity and they had two medical emergencies that necessitated hospital bills (with no insurance, that can be extremely costly). The middle class is normally shielded from expenses like this.

There were a couple of things I felt were kind of "off", however... One, the jobs they got actually paid more than minimum wage. They were closer to $7/hour -- so it's not really representative of people only making $5.15. Secondly, though they did buy a bus pass and shop at the free store, there were at least a couple things we saw them doing that seemed like flagrant wastes of money-- i.e. buying bottled water at least twice and buying candy at the movie theater (talk about a rip-off!). Third, Morgan injured his wrist at work and went to the emergency room -- it seems like there would have been some kind of worker's comp doctor he could have visited.

Of course, these are minor nitpicks... the point, to me, is really that you can tell a lot about a society by looking at how they treat their weakest members, and we treat our weakest members pretty shabbily. Secondary point? Gawd, does our health care system suck! In Morgan's case, they were charged $550 just to walk through the door at the emergency room... which hardly seems fair. You can't save that kind of money very easily at $7/hour... much less $5.15. Makes my nitpick about spending money at the theater pretty silly.

The show actually made me think... and I appreciate it when tv does that for me. After it was over, I looked around our comfortable living room, couches and tables and television and vcr and all, and felt very, very lucky. We were extremely lucky to be born not only at the time we were, but into the families we were... and sometimes I think we forget that.

I mean, that we can even TALK about moving to Italy for Mr. Pants to go to culinary school? That would be so, so ridiculously out of reach for so many people. It's going to be a struggle for us, but we'll be able to pull it off. Dang. We always have to remember just how fortunate we actually are.

I can't think of a way to wrap this up, so I think I'll just stop typing. Kinda the conclusion I always got yelled at for in high school.