Can we talk?
Right now, in a town not too far from where I dry my own clothes is a battle raging and a fierce one at that. And no, it's not over speeding drivers, neighborhood drugs or unscooped poop.
The battle rages over "unmentionables" flapping in the breeze, hanging peacefully from a clothesline. (Don't you love that word "unmentionables? It gives the connotation that Brace's lingerie consists of black leather dominatrix corsets with devil heads and skulls and crossbones emblazoned across the breast area and of course, crotchless. Ha, if she DID have those kinds of THOSE unmentionables hanging from her clotheslines, how much you wanna bet the husbands of the wives who are complaining would be foaming at the mouth and have phantasmagorical (is that a word?) dreams of naughtiness beyond comprehension.)
Concord (Mass.) resident Peggy Brace is embracing eco-friendly measures by foregoing an electric or gas dryer and hanging her clothes on a clothesline to dry. She air-dries her clothes outside, even in winter. And this alleged heinous, clothesline-hanging criminal act is - GASP -being committed ON HER OWN PROPERTY.
Can I get a "GET A LIFE PEOPLE" from everyone?
Yes, folks, it's the old NIMBY attitude raising it's ugly head: Not In My Backyard! Pretty soon you'll see signs up on neighbor's lawn that read "BRACE GO BRALESS" or "HANG'EM HIGH - INSIDE YOUR HOUSE" or some other nonsensical drivelous statements.
In a story on www.myfoxboston.com, Brace is quoted as saying "It's so silly. I don't know what the hang-up is" referring to the bevy of complaints by her neighbors over her clothesline. Brace is also quoted as saying "It indicates poverty if you hang out your wash."
Really? Then clearly the residents of her neighborhood are stuck up million dollar snobby bitches who wouldn't know poverty if it hit them with a cast iron frying pan.
In a world where our environment is constantly being destroyed by our failure to consistently recycle, pollutants being pumped into our atmosphere by the millions of gallons and slowly poking holes in our ozone, and our forests being destroyed by greedy builders who care nothing about destroying habitats of endangered species, the residents of Brace's Concord, Massachusetts neighborhood are bitching about a clothesline.
C'mon people. If you don't like it, don't look! And it's not like Brace's clothes are hanging out there 24/7 365. If I could do it, I would.
My own Mom used to hang out our clothes in the summertime when I was growing up in Vermont and when I put on my clothes, the warmth of the sun wrapped itself around me like a safe cocoon and I was surrounded by the familiar smells of summer. OK, a time or two a stray ladybug crawled out of my shorts or my sleeveless shirts but that didn't bother me at all.
But this is beyond petty and ridiculous. There are far more important things in our world to complain about that someones "unmentionables."
If I were Peggy Brace, I'd hammer a really big sign into the ground - on her property of course - proclaiming the legendary words of one Bart Simpson:
"EAT MY SHORTS."
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Drunk Driving Laws Not Tough Enough
Finally, a judge who threw the book at someone who tried to pull a fast one in the courtroom (not a new concept).
On Monday, January 4, 2010, Massachusetts judge Matthew J. Nestor refused to "buy the claim" that disgraced Mass. Senator Anthony D. Galluccio's toothpaste caused the Breathalyzer to register alcohol content in Galluccio's body. Judge Nestor (thank you, thank you, thank you) sentenced Galluccio to one year in jail for violating probationary terms that Galluccio was to abstain from alcohol after a hit-and-run accident in October, 2009. Galluccio's drunk driving "transgressions" (love that word) go back to 1984 and until Judge Nestor threw the book at him, Galluccio seemed to have walked away from each DUI mishap without even a slap on his wrist.
Mass. drunk driving laws are useless. What is the worse these losers get? A year? Two years? Lifetime revocation of their driving license? Do these judges actually think that a piece of paper that says "you can't drive for the rest of your life" is going to stop people from actually (a) drinking and (b) getting back into their cars and driving - sober or drunk?
Nope.
Galluccio is obviously in denial about his alcohol problem. His toothpaste defense was so far beyond laughable it isn't funny anymore. Denial is commonplace for alcoholics. Trust me - I lived in that life first-hand with my ex-husband who battled an alcohol problem for years until he was diagnosed with colon cancer in September 2008 and was pretty much told if he kept drinking, he'd be dead within a year. I can't say for sure if he stopped drinking but my son tells me he never sees alcohol at his dad's house anymore. But that doesn't mean my ex has stopped drinking.
I went to Alanon meetings a long, long time ago and listened to people talk about their "addiction" and their "disease" and frankly, I sat there shaking my head at everyone because I felt like standing up and saying "Excuse me. Was anyone holding a gun to your head when you took that first drink? No. Was anyone holding a gun to your head when you got into your car and drove drunk?" No. And on and on and on. In my analytical brain, alcoholism is NOT a disease - it is simply a cop out, a way for people to be weak and hide their everyday troubles - whatever they may be - and then try to "defend" their drinking by claiming "I have a job. I pay my bills. I take care of my kids."
Oh really? And if you're off your rocker drunk at 2 a.m. and your child wakes up with a 103 fever and has to go to the ER, and you get in your car and drive into a tree and kill your child, what's your defense then, huh asshole?
Give me a break.
Maybe because I am so jaded, maybe because I am so cynical and unrelenting in my show of sympathy that I have none for drunk drivers. Everyone one of them should be put in jail for 10 years and the key tossed away.
I remember years ago a group of people (I can't name names or the group) talked about getting together for "cocktails" at 11 a.m. and this "cocktail hour" would include a "playgroup" for their children at the home of the person hosting this cocktail get together. I was just shocked and disgusted by how many of these "persons" thought nothing of driving to this person's home with their infants and toddlers in tow, ingesting 2 or 3 cocktails while their children played and then getting back into their cars to drive home.
I protested this absolutely irresponsible and disgusting behavior and was slammed to the wall for my comments. All of them thought it was perfectly fine to drink and drive with their kids in the car. Most of them said "Well, it's only 2 or 3 and I don't live very far away so it's no big deal."
I just could not pick up my jaw off the floor. Appalled just doesn't cover how I felt toward these so-called parents.
When I was 16 years old, I worked at a CVS. A guy named Greg came in on a Friday night - he was really handsome (and 18 years old), in his first year of college and asked me for my phone number. He called me later that night, we talked for a few minutes and we made tentative plans to go to the movies on Sunday. He told me was driving to the Cape that night to see his Mom and Dad.
Sunday morning, I opened the newspaper to see his face on the front page. He was dead, killed by a drunk driver. That driver got 2 years in prison for killing Greg. I was devastated by his death.
Now as a mother to a child whose father was an alcoholic (again, I do not know if my ex has truly stopped drinking - I can only hope he has), I would give anything to see stricter drunk driving laws enacted but it will never happen because the same people who make our laws drink alcohol, the same judges who give light sentences to drunk drivers drink alcohol - and I will bet a year's worth of paychecks that many of them have driven drunk but just never been caught.
Case in point: Early in April, 2009, Massachusetts Judge Christine M. McEvoy was charged with drunk driving. She made some lame statement about her "judgment" and blah blah blah.
Heard it all before. Save it, Judge. You and the rest of the judges and attorneys and cops and everyone who drinks and drives and thinks they are either above the law, immune to the penalties or simply blessed with immortality.
Wrong.
Another case in point: How about that wrong-way crash mother who was driving drunk in New York and killed eight people, including all 3 of her brother's children, 2 of her own, herself and 2 others in another car? I was just disgusted at how her family defended her to the hilt that she wasn't an alcoholic, she couldn't have been drinking, they were going to protest the autopsy results, blah blah blah.
Wake up you morons. Eight people are DEAD because this woman drank herself into oblivion, got into her mini van and drove the wrong way down a NY freeway and killed eight people, most of them children. How about thinking about that? She effectively wiped out her brother's family.
When is this going to end? When are people going to realize that drinking and driving - and perhaps not even just driving - but drinking alcohol period changes your chemical makeup of your body whether you have 1 or 100? You are NOT the same functioning person as you are if you have NO alcohol in your body.
Until are laws are so stiff and so harsh that drunk drivers are put away for life, they are going to continue to murder, maim and permanently disfigure innocent people, destroy families and careers but their careless, pathetic irresponsible actions. "Oh, I just had two. Or I just had three." Oh, oops. Didn't see that tree coming. Oh, oops. Forgot to buckle my infant baby into his car seat and oh, oops, the cops had to dig my child out of the windshield."
There is no law tough enough to stop drunk drivers. Life in prison with no chance of parole is the only answer. Or the death penalty.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
You drink, you drive, you kill, then you should die, too. Why should drunk drivers get to live when they take other lives?
Maybe my view is harsh and unsympathetic but 32 years ago, a young man's life, a smile that I never forgot was snuffed out forever because of a drunk driver. I never got to see Greg's smile again, I never got to hear his voice again.
Drunk drivers should be snuffed out exactly the same way.
On Monday, January 4, 2010, Massachusetts judge Matthew J. Nestor refused to "buy the claim" that disgraced Mass. Senator Anthony D. Galluccio's toothpaste caused the Breathalyzer to register alcohol content in Galluccio's body. Judge Nestor (thank you, thank you, thank you) sentenced Galluccio to one year in jail for violating probationary terms that Galluccio was to abstain from alcohol after a hit-and-run accident in October, 2009. Galluccio's drunk driving "transgressions" (love that word) go back to 1984 and until Judge Nestor threw the book at him, Galluccio seemed to have walked away from each DUI mishap without even a slap on his wrist.
Mass. drunk driving laws are useless. What is the worse these losers get? A year? Two years? Lifetime revocation of their driving license? Do these judges actually think that a piece of paper that says "you can't drive for the rest of your life" is going to stop people from actually (a) drinking and (b) getting back into their cars and driving - sober or drunk?
Nope.
Galluccio is obviously in denial about his alcohol problem. His toothpaste defense was so far beyond laughable it isn't funny anymore. Denial is commonplace for alcoholics. Trust me - I lived in that life first-hand with my ex-husband who battled an alcohol problem for years until he was diagnosed with colon cancer in September 2008 and was pretty much told if he kept drinking, he'd be dead within a year. I can't say for sure if he stopped drinking but my son tells me he never sees alcohol at his dad's house anymore. But that doesn't mean my ex has stopped drinking.
I went to Alanon meetings a long, long time ago and listened to people talk about their "addiction" and their "disease" and frankly, I sat there shaking my head at everyone because I felt like standing up and saying "Excuse me. Was anyone holding a gun to your head when you took that first drink? No. Was anyone holding a gun to your head when you got into your car and drove drunk?" No. And on and on and on. In my analytical brain, alcoholism is NOT a disease - it is simply a cop out, a way for people to be weak and hide their everyday troubles - whatever they may be - and then try to "defend" their drinking by claiming "I have a job. I pay my bills. I take care of my kids."
Oh really? And if you're off your rocker drunk at 2 a.m. and your child wakes up with a 103 fever and has to go to the ER, and you get in your car and drive into a tree and kill your child, what's your defense then, huh asshole?
Give me a break.
Maybe because I am so jaded, maybe because I am so cynical and unrelenting in my show of sympathy that I have none for drunk drivers. Everyone one of them should be put in jail for 10 years and the key tossed away.
I remember years ago a group of people (I can't name names or the group) talked about getting together for "cocktails" at 11 a.m. and this "cocktail hour" would include a "playgroup" for their children at the home of the person hosting this cocktail get together. I was just shocked and disgusted by how many of these "persons" thought nothing of driving to this person's home with their infants and toddlers in tow, ingesting 2 or 3 cocktails while their children played and then getting back into their cars to drive home.
I protested this absolutely irresponsible and disgusting behavior and was slammed to the wall for my comments. All of them thought it was perfectly fine to drink and drive with their kids in the car. Most of them said "Well, it's only 2 or 3 and I don't live very far away so it's no big deal."
I just could not pick up my jaw off the floor. Appalled just doesn't cover how I felt toward these so-called parents.
When I was 16 years old, I worked at a CVS. A guy named Greg came in on a Friday night - he was really handsome (and 18 years old), in his first year of college and asked me for my phone number. He called me later that night, we talked for a few minutes and we made tentative plans to go to the movies on Sunday. He told me was driving to the Cape that night to see his Mom and Dad.
Sunday morning, I opened the newspaper to see his face on the front page. He was dead, killed by a drunk driver. That driver got 2 years in prison for killing Greg. I was devastated by his death.
Now as a mother to a child whose father was an alcoholic (again, I do not know if my ex has truly stopped drinking - I can only hope he has), I would give anything to see stricter drunk driving laws enacted but it will never happen because the same people who make our laws drink alcohol, the same judges who give light sentences to drunk drivers drink alcohol - and I will bet a year's worth of paychecks that many of them have driven drunk but just never been caught.
Case in point: Early in April, 2009, Massachusetts Judge Christine M. McEvoy was charged with drunk driving. She made some lame statement about her "judgment" and blah blah blah.
Heard it all before. Save it, Judge. You and the rest of the judges and attorneys and cops and everyone who drinks and drives and thinks they are either above the law, immune to the penalties or simply blessed with immortality.
Wrong.
Another case in point: How about that wrong-way crash mother who was driving drunk in New York and killed eight people, including all 3 of her brother's children, 2 of her own, herself and 2 others in another car? I was just disgusted at how her family defended her to the hilt that she wasn't an alcoholic, she couldn't have been drinking, they were going to protest the autopsy results, blah blah blah.
Wake up you morons. Eight people are DEAD because this woman drank herself into oblivion, got into her mini van and drove the wrong way down a NY freeway and killed eight people, most of them children. How about thinking about that? She effectively wiped out her brother's family.
When is this going to end? When are people going to realize that drinking and driving - and perhaps not even just driving - but drinking alcohol period changes your chemical makeup of your body whether you have 1 or 100? You are NOT the same functioning person as you are if you have NO alcohol in your body.
Until are laws are so stiff and so harsh that drunk drivers are put away for life, they are going to continue to murder, maim and permanently disfigure innocent people, destroy families and careers but their careless, pathetic irresponsible actions. "Oh, I just had two. Or I just had three." Oh, oops. Didn't see that tree coming. Oh, oops. Forgot to buckle my infant baby into his car seat and oh, oops, the cops had to dig my child out of the windshield."
There is no law tough enough to stop drunk drivers. Life in prison with no chance of parole is the only answer. Or the death penalty.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
You drink, you drive, you kill, then you should die, too. Why should drunk drivers get to live when they take other lives?
Maybe my view is harsh and unsympathetic but 32 years ago, a young man's life, a smile that I never forgot was snuffed out forever because of a drunk driver. I never got to see Greg's smile again, I never got to hear his voice again.
Drunk drivers should be snuffed out exactly the same way.
Monday, January 4, 2010
And (Not) Justice For All
The brain is an amazing source of consternation because somehow, it has this twisted way of not shutting down at night and generating thought after thought till all hours of the morning which in essence then keeps me up and makes me a first-class grouch thereafter.
The past week, rampant thoughts of what is going on around me with regard to illegal immigrants and the benefits which are afforded them - and not me - have pretty much taken over my thought process.
Case in point: As a single mother, I rely solely on my part time income and my child support. My rent is 30 percent of my income which suffice to say is nearly my entire child support. If I work more, my rent goes up. So I am effectively in a corner with my back up against a really hard brick wall and the edges of the concrete of the bricks are making permanent marks in my back because I have been in this position forever. I can't go out and get a full time job because my rent will skyrocket and I'll be throwing away all my money for what - to live in the single serving cereal box I live in? That's what sucks because the more you make, the higher your rent goes and you can't save any money for a down payment for a house because you're giving it all to the slumlords who run the kind of place in which I reside.
So I put my name on a waiting list for a "voucher" to help with my son's after school program which is considered "child care." I have this after school care because it has vacation programs for which my son qualifies because he is in the regular after-school program and I have to work so my son has a place to go during school vacations. Ditto for the majority of the holidays that fall during the regular school year. Some of these holidays I receive an off day from work so I elect to keep my son with me to save myself some money.
I do this single parent thing all by myself. My closest relative is my Mom and she lives in another state. She is almost 79 years old, doesn't drive more than a mile to the grocery store and back and is living out the rest of her life comfortably and in peace. She is not a child care option. And there are very, very few people I would trust with the care of my son. So for the most part, I am alone.
I have been on this "waiting list" for a child care voucher going on 3 years. I am not on welfare. I do receive food stamps out of necessity - a whopping $16 a month because someone decided that my $15,000 per year bottom of the ocean below the poverty line income was more than enough money for me to buy groceries for me and my son who brings his lunch to school 3 out of the 5 school days and for whom I pack a lunch every day Monday through Friday for 10 weeks of summer vacations. Short of starving myself or my son, I had to laugh at the $16 allotment of food stamps.
But what I wasn't laughing when reality set in and I pictured this scenario: Illegal immigrants apply for food stamps. A social security number is required or at least on the application I - born, raised U.S. Citizen - fills out. Does anyone check the validity of the social security numbers presented? Or do these illegals - which number by the thousands here in Massachusetts - have a "different" form given to them to fill out? They claim they aren't working. I'm sorry but my own ex-husband's wife (who is Brazilian) has a cleaning job that she earns cash from and doesn't report. I know how this goes. Illegals work "under the table" for cash, don't report their income (how can they - they're illegal and don't have social security numbers) but they get food stamps (more than $16 a month I am sure), get better health care than I do (because their income is allegedly lower than mine - yah right) AND (drum roll please) they go on welfare which automatically qualifies them for CHILD CARE VOUCHERS WOOHOO!
And here I am, born, bred U.S. Citizen who reports her income, reports her child support and I am getting screwed 27 different ways to Texas by the illegals. But is it them or the government agencies who are short-staffed, short-changed or just plain short of qualified people who obviously don't have enough have enough brains in their head to realize how unfair our laws truly are???!!!
We CATER to illegals and leave our own people - like myself who are in dire need of services - or more than what is allotted to me - in the dust of the illegals.
I am sorry but illegal immigrants do not deserve to get the benefits that I and other U.S. Citizens rightfully deserve.
Now don't get me wrong because I live in subsidized housing and I am surrounded by people who are committing varying degrees of housing fraud, tax evasion, etc. and who are U.S. Citizens. But what good is it going to do me to tattle on them? How would it benefit me? It doesn't and it never will. So I suffer in silence, I pay my rent, I stay out of trouble and pray for a miracle. I hope for what comes around goes around but it seems that everyone just keeps getting away with all kinds of shit while I struggle with a rope tightening around my neck pretty much every day. These housing fraud-ers and tax evaders and lease violators aren't hurting me in any way except in principal but I AM getting hurt because I am doing the right thing, playing by the rules, living within the provisions of my lease and keeping my nose clean!!! I don't do drugs, I don't have alcohol-laden parties and oh yes - I don't have a dog. I have a fish that's near death but I don't know if that counts. I come home some days to the smell of drugs cooking or being smoked or whatever the fuck people do with them. I come home to find gigantic holes punched in the walls because some asshole tenant decided to take out his or her frustration and now the damage makes us all look bad - makes us ALL look like trash - just like this town labels us. And I hate being labeled as trash. I hate being labeled at all.
And then I have to explain to my son about the damage. I tell him he will NOT grow up to be like that. I pray that I am getting through to him at 9 1/2 years old.
As much as I struggle to keep my head above water, the constant thorn in my side is knowing that illegal immigrants are getting my child care vouchers because they have fake/fraudulent/dead people's social security numbers or just random made up socials to secure benefits they do not deserve. Who is worse: The illegals getting benefits they don't deserve or the people around me committing housing fraud BECAUSE THEY CAN?
Who do I complain to? Who would actually look into this for me? No one. If I go to the property manager and question her background check requirements or how the paperwork is filled out or the information that is presented by tenants or prospective tenants, I will probably be evicted or retaliated against in some way for even questioning what's supposed to be none of my business. Forgive me for being a summa cum laud college graduate, having a GPA at graduation of 3.8 and actually having brains in my head and not in my ass. But that's what would happen if I even made a squeak about how the requirements for securing housing in this place I live. This place is owned by slumlords who don't give a shit about any of us.
Ditto for child care vouchers. Do these people actually check the paperwork? Obviously not because I am STILL on the waiting list for child care and I would give a million dollars if I had it to see who's gotten the child care voucher I covet - like church wine - ahead of me. If anyone tries to tell me that ALL the people who have gotten those vouchers ahead of me are U.S. Citizens - I am going to throw up - and then some.
What if I went to some of these illegals' countries? Do you think I could get away with the shit they do here in the United States? I'd be shot on sight. Dead. Gone.
I can sit here and blog about illegals and about the unfairness of it all but nothing is ever going to change. I even emailed Mike Beaudette who is an undercover report for Fox25 News here in Massachusetts and even he ignored me. I guess there are just some stories that reporters won't touch because of politics. And here I thought Fox 25 News was pretty damn liberal and would jump on an investigation into fraud by illegal immigrants.
Oh wait. I know why he didn't contact me. It's not even a story anymore.
Illegal immgrants getting benefits that U.S. Citizens don't is an everyday occurrence like going to the grocery store for milk and eggs. Who wants to investigate that?
The past week, rampant thoughts of what is going on around me with regard to illegal immigrants and the benefits which are afforded them - and not me - have pretty much taken over my thought process.
Case in point: As a single mother, I rely solely on my part time income and my child support. My rent is 30 percent of my income which suffice to say is nearly my entire child support. If I work more, my rent goes up. So I am effectively in a corner with my back up against a really hard brick wall and the edges of the concrete of the bricks are making permanent marks in my back because I have been in this position forever. I can't go out and get a full time job because my rent will skyrocket and I'll be throwing away all my money for what - to live in the single serving cereal box I live in? That's what sucks because the more you make, the higher your rent goes and you can't save any money for a down payment for a house because you're giving it all to the slumlords who run the kind of place in which I reside.
So I put my name on a waiting list for a "voucher" to help with my son's after school program which is considered "child care." I have this after school care because it has vacation programs for which my son qualifies because he is in the regular after-school program and I have to work so my son has a place to go during school vacations. Ditto for the majority of the holidays that fall during the regular school year. Some of these holidays I receive an off day from work so I elect to keep my son with me to save myself some money.
I do this single parent thing all by myself. My closest relative is my Mom and she lives in another state. She is almost 79 years old, doesn't drive more than a mile to the grocery store and back and is living out the rest of her life comfortably and in peace. She is not a child care option. And there are very, very few people I would trust with the care of my son. So for the most part, I am alone.
I have been on this "waiting list" for a child care voucher going on 3 years. I am not on welfare. I do receive food stamps out of necessity - a whopping $16 a month because someone decided that my $15,000 per year bottom of the ocean below the poverty line income was more than enough money for me to buy groceries for me and my son who brings his lunch to school 3 out of the 5 school days and for whom I pack a lunch every day Monday through Friday for 10 weeks of summer vacations. Short of starving myself or my son, I had to laugh at the $16 allotment of food stamps.
But what I wasn't laughing when reality set in and I pictured this scenario: Illegal immigrants apply for food stamps. A social security number is required or at least on the application I - born, raised U.S. Citizen - fills out. Does anyone check the validity of the social security numbers presented? Or do these illegals - which number by the thousands here in Massachusetts - have a "different" form given to them to fill out? They claim they aren't working. I'm sorry but my own ex-husband's wife (who is Brazilian) has a cleaning job that she earns cash from and doesn't report. I know how this goes. Illegals work "under the table" for cash, don't report their income (how can they - they're illegal and don't have social security numbers) but they get food stamps (more than $16 a month I am sure), get better health care than I do (because their income is allegedly lower than mine - yah right) AND (drum roll please) they go on welfare which automatically qualifies them for CHILD CARE VOUCHERS WOOHOO!
And here I am, born, bred U.S. Citizen who reports her income, reports her child support and I am getting screwed 27 different ways to Texas by the illegals. But is it them or the government agencies who are short-staffed, short-changed or just plain short of qualified people who obviously don't have enough have enough brains in their head to realize how unfair our laws truly are???!!!
We CATER to illegals and leave our own people - like myself who are in dire need of services - or more than what is allotted to me - in the dust of the illegals.
I am sorry but illegal immigrants do not deserve to get the benefits that I and other U.S. Citizens rightfully deserve.
Now don't get me wrong because I live in subsidized housing and I am surrounded by people who are committing varying degrees of housing fraud, tax evasion, etc. and who are U.S. Citizens. But what good is it going to do me to tattle on them? How would it benefit me? It doesn't and it never will. So I suffer in silence, I pay my rent, I stay out of trouble and pray for a miracle. I hope for what comes around goes around but it seems that everyone just keeps getting away with all kinds of shit while I struggle with a rope tightening around my neck pretty much every day. These housing fraud-ers and tax evaders and lease violators aren't hurting me in any way except in principal but I AM getting hurt because I am doing the right thing, playing by the rules, living within the provisions of my lease and keeping my nose clean!!! I don't do drugs, I don't have alcohol-laden parties and oh yes - I don't have a dog. I have a fish that's near death but I don't know if that counts. I come home some days to the smell of drugs cooking or being smoked or whatever the fuck people do with them. I come home to find gigantic holes punched in the walls because some asshole tenant decided to take out his or her frustration and now the damage makes us all look bad - makes us ALL look like trash - just like this town labels us. And I hate being labeled as trash. I hate being labeled at all.
And then I have to explain to my son about the damage. I tell him he will NOT grow up to be like that. I pray that I am getting through to him at 9 1/2 years old.
As much as I struggle to keep my head above water, the constant thorn in my side is knowing that illegal immigrants are getting my child care vouchers because they have fake/fraudulent/dead people's social security numbers or just random made up socials to secure benefits they do not deserve. Who is worse: The illegals getting benefits they don't deserve or the people around me committing housing fraud BECAUSE THEY CAN?
Who do I complain to? Who would actually look into this for me? No one. If I go to the property manager and question her background check requirements or how the paperwork is filled out or the information that is presented by tenants or prospective tenants, I will probably be evicted or retaliated against in some way for even questioning what's supposed to be none of my business. Forgive me for being a summa cum laud college graduate, having a GPA at graduation of 3.8 and actually having brains in my head and not in my ass. But that's what would happen if I even made a squeak about how the requirements for securing housing in this place I live. This place is owned by slumlords who don't give a shit about any of us.
Ditto for child care vouchers. Do these people actually check the paperwork? Obviously not because I am STILL on the waiting list for child care and I would give a million dollars if I had it to see who's gotten the child care voucher I covet - like church wine - ahead of me. If anyone tries to tell me that ALL the people who have gotten those vouchers ahead of me are U.S. Citizens - I am going to throw up - and then some.
What if I went to some of these illegals' countries? Do you think I could get away with the shit they do here in the United States? I'd be shot on sight. Dead. Gone.
I can sit here and blog about illegals and about the unfairness of it all but nothing is ever going to change. I even emailed Mike Beaudette who is an undercover report for Fox25 News here in Massachusetts and even he ignored me. I guess there are just some stories that reporters won't touch because of politics. And here I thought Fox 25 News was pretty damn liberal and would jump on an investigation into fraud by illegal immigrants.
Oh wait. I know why he didn't contact me. It's not even a story anymore.
Illegal immgrants getting benefits that U.S. Citizens don't is an everyday occurrence like going to the grocery store for milk and eggs. Who wants to investigate that?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)