College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag

Let's rephrase this shall we?

A white, young, healthy, middle-class, male, college graduate plays at being 'poor' and 'destitute' for a few months as an 'experiment' - a bit of a game - with a credit card hidden in his back pocket he can use to bail him out in the case of any kind of emergency...

Mmmmm. Golly - I bet many of the people he shared the homeless shelter with and queued up for his food stamps alongside (btw is that even legal?) wished they had a emergency credit card and the knowledge they could go home to a loving supportive family when things got too tough and unbearable, or at the very least knew what they were living through was just for the one single year.

No doubt - he'll soon be writing a book, which he'll start making tv appearances to promote, which will be a best seller, then he'll probably go into politics as a republican and start lobbying that for what passes for a welfare system in the US should be totally dismantled - because, well, obviously no one needs to be poor and homeless if they've just got the right sort of can-do attitude and if they're just willing to work. He's living proof after all. *Cough-arrrogantasshole-cough*

Odd then, that if it's all that easy why isn't absolutely everyone doing it? Not to mention that - well, for a few people to be rich - there has to be an awful lot of poor people... but the Western world seems to like that way, so that won't be changing any time soon. Alas.

Now why does all this remind me of that little popular Britpop ditty that Jarvis Cocker used to sing?

Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.

You'll never live like common people,
you'll never do what common people do,
you'll never fail like common people,
you'll never watch your life slide out of view,
and dance and drink and screw,
because there's nothing else to do.

Sing along with the common people,
sing along and it might just get you through,
laugh along with the common people,
laugh along even though they're laughing at you,
and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.

Money: College Grad Succeeds With $25 And A Gym Bag