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I Know I Should Not...

I know I should not do this, but honestly, I am in a pretty p*ss-poor mood anyhow, so what the hell difference does it make? I decided to glance briefly at the Homeless Guy's blog this morning, and of course that was an assinie and stupid thing to do on my part. I very rarely look at his site anymore (perhaps once a month), and inevitably, when I do, I am aggrivated. Here is his post from last Tuesday (03-21-06):


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Horse Manure

I finally got some work yesterday, out of the Job Office - 8 hours worth.

The job? Cleaning out horse stables.

Pine clippings are used as the bedding on the floor. It gets really wet and smelly once a horse relieves him/herself.

I will get paid 7 dollars an hour for this 8 hour job. BUT... this job came to the Job Office through yet another temp agency. This means that yet another company will have its hands in my paycheck. When all is said and done, and everyone who can has skimmed off the top, I will have about $30 for my 8 hours of back breaking work. After taxes and fees and transportation to the job site... I had to pay for the bus tokens to ride the bus to the other temp agency, and that temp agency charged me again for the trip to the actual job site, so I ended up paying a total of 10 dollars for transportation yesterday. Of course a 24 hour bus pass only costs $2.50. (but if there's a chance to rip-off the lowly and low paid general labor temp worker...)

Such is the typical situation for a homeless person trying to work their way out of homelessness. No wonder so few ever make it out this way. For most people to get out of homelessness, someone has to bail them out.
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Now, why does this aggrivate me? It is a well written essay, and has a good focus, it is true. However, the part that aggrivates me to no end is that here is Mr. Barbieux harranging on AGAIN, about a grievous injustice he has had to endure and this is why it is so hard for him (he is the "everyman" of homelessness) to ever leave homelessness. The sad truth is that Keven *had* been living in a subsidized apartment, and had a *job* and had "found" a way out of homelessness, and he chose to abandon all that on the spur of the moment to take a bus ride out to Las Vegas and take up residence there. That was his choice, to leave his home for no reason other than the idea he no longer felt "free".

This is annoying on several different levels which I am sure all of you can imagine, but the reason why this yanks my chain so greatly today is that the basic thought processes Kevin uses are pretty damn similar to what my wife often uses lately and is the source of a very heated discussion we have had since yesterday. In a nutshell, here is the thrust of her argument:

We have chores (tasks) that we need to accomplish as part of the running of a household. Everyone does. There is a basic subset that needs to be done on a scheduled frequency. Things such as grocery shopping, laundry, vacuuming the carpeting, cleaning the litter boxes, mowing the lawn, shoveling the driveway, etc. Well, my wife comes to me (for the nth time (I cannot begin to count to what "n" is)) to say that she is feeling overwhelmed and over burdened by her tasks. This has been going on our entire marriage and I often times get fed up with it. I do not need to have someone complaining to me constantly about nonsense. I finally told her yesterday the following:

"I am beyond tired of this same argument month after month. Here is my solution and here is what I want you to do..... Do whatever it is that makes you happy and makes you stop being such a crab at me about this b*llsh*t. You don't like my suggested schedule for us to divide up the housework so that we can have more relaxation time together, you get more riled up and upset if I do any of the things you neglect to do (I cannot believe you get angry at me for washing the clothes, after you have not touched them for three weeks). I am fed up to here with it, and I am no longer going to try to solve it. YOU solve it. YOU find some way to be happy, doing whatever the hell it is you want, and then tell me what that will be. I will do the damn rest of everything."

My wife, very much like Mr. Barbeiux, is a person who does things with the annoyingly obnoxious habit of being either 100% or 0%. These people see nothing but black or white, and cannot see any middle ground or compromise in anything. It is beyond annoying and it is tiresome as hell to live with. Either my wife will try to be "super-woman" and do her share and then try to do everything else on the planet, all in the same moment of time (hence giving her, her "justification" to whine and complain), or she does ZERO, and complains that she is over burdened and now there is just too much to do. Do not get me wrong, I love my wife, but sometimes I am not particularly fond of her. She has got to learn to not crab at me because SHE is feeling cranky. And, the bigger goal, is she needs to grow up (a pretty silly thing to say at our ages) and accept that there are tasks we all do in life to help our home run more smoothly. They may not be something that jazzes up our day and makes life exciting and amazing, but sh*t, they are things that we all do to keep things working smoothly and to help each other out. Household tasks are to be done a) because they need to be, b) to express love of family in a tangible way, and c) without crabbing or b*tch*ng about them, for when someone simply b*tch*s their way through them, it negates any sort of feelings of love, appreciation, and/or kindness others may feel about the person's efforts.

There. I do not feel better, but that is it in a nutshell.

PipeTobacco