Essay Contest
Poor Me, Poor You
Incite Change Essay Contest #1: Poverty
She sighs as she looks at the nearly empty tube of toothpaste. Instead of squeezing out the last bits of paste or cutting open the tube to scrape the scraps, she runs hot water over her empty toothbrush. This is the second day in a row she’s gone toothpaste-less. It’s only the second week of the month and she’s already spent her $ 50.00 worth of food stamps which doesn’t cover non-food items like toothpaste, anyway. She won’t get her SSI check until the first.
This month his check went to pay rent and the phone bill. Next month it will have to be rent, car insurance, and registration. If he still has a job next month. He hopes he won’t get another parking ticket while his car isn’t registered or covered by insurance. He has too many unpaid parking tickets as it is. One more and they’ll boot his car and take it to the impound lot. He won’t be able to come up with the impound fees and pay the tickets, let alone make sure he has registration and insurance to get the car back. He'd have to write off the car and lose his job in the process.
She’s basically given up on looking for jobs. Taking several buses for several hours just to go to a job interview downtown that she knows she won’t get anyway is becoming too much. Getting there, interviewing, and…
