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I will admit that this is going to turn into a bit of a rant because I’m a little peeved right now about a few things.

I hold personal responsibility to be an extremely important factor in life: Whether you are taking responsibility to make more of yourself than what shitty life circumstances have made you or simply managing money properly so that you can eat at the end of the week.

To be clear, I am not in any way talking about people who read or are linked to this blog at all. I am talking about another specific “friend” who has invited me out for a few weekends in a row. She spoke of having extra money about three weeks ago, so we could afford to go out and get drinks. It didn’t happen. We tried the Friday after that, but she called me, sick and unable to go out. We tried last Friday, but with a late MRI in Cinci for my older son, Puppy put his foot down and told me to go home and sleep, not go out (something I’m extremely grateful for because he knows me well enough to know when I need to stop pushing myself).

So Sunday evening rolls around and this individual gives me a call and suggests that we go out and peruse some Halloween stuff and perhaps pick up some stuff for her costume. I have not gone out with her and feel kind of bad for ditching on Friday, even though it was necessary. So I agree to go out with her. We wander around Foys (a local legend of Halloween Specialty Shops in the area), and then head to the Party City Halloween place. She picks up a few things and I notice that they give a military discount. I flash my ID to help her get 10% off her stuff (no big deal there). Her total though, with the discount, ends up being nearly $40. I’m hungry and haven’t had dinner so we run over to Chipotle. She says she is out of money, so I offer to grab some dinner for both of us which wasn’t too bad of a cost: I don’t mind grabbing the bill every once and again with friends…no big deal.

Then, she starts talking about how she has two dollars in her bank account (after calling to check her card balance) and won’t get paid until Friday and has less than a half tank of gas but has to drive to court and back for an accident from a month ago (she wasn’t driving but was a passenger in so has to be in court) and won’t have the gas to get to work if she’s doing that. So she asks me, since she has been driving me around to put ten dollars in her tank. I do it because I don’t want to create a scene about it, but I’m pretty pissed.

1. The distance she drove was less than one gallon of gasoline, even if her car gets shitty gas mileage.

2. If she didn’t have much gas/gas money why didn’t she ask me to drive my car around town?

3. I had just spent money on her voluntarily on her dinner because she didn’t have any money and then she asks for money for gas. If she had needed gas she should have asked me at the beginning if I could chip in a few bucks, not after I’ve already stretched my own budget by buying her dinner.

4. She didn’t have any money because she just spent $40 cash to pay for some stupid fairy wings, a cheap set of gloves, a necklace, and some earrings…if she didn’t have money to eat or get gas, why the fuck was she shopping?

Please don’t misunderstand me as saying people who don’t have money shouldn’t go out and have fun once and again (I know it is needed), but if your choice is between having gas to get to and from your mandatory life obligations/paying bills and getting stupid cheap bullshit, you pay the mandatory stuff first then worry about the other shit after that.

This pissed me off quite a bit. I’m very pissed when people abuse my willingness to help them out and the only reason they need help is because they were stupid.

This is in stark contrast to my roommate K who has extremely legitimate reasons to not have a ton of money: Missing work and having bills from the ER means no money. That, to me, says “I’m in a bad situation and doing my best, but life is just raping me in the face.” The other huge difference is that K offered to compensate me by doing some childcare which costs too much money, so that Puppy and I could have a night out. That, to me, demonstrates a sense of responsibility and willingness to work around a bad financial situation. I didn’t see that from this other person, it was like “oh yeah, I just remembered that I don’t have any money after spending $40 on shit…help me out because you have money…right?”

My family lives on a single military income with three dependents. Two of those dependents require constant shuttling to speech and occupational therapy appointments. We go out occasionally, but have drastically cut down, particularly with having utility bills increase by having a roommate that is having a hard time financially. These are things we are more than willing to accept because that is who we are: I’ve been homeless and won’t bitch about someone needing to be helped out who is responsible. Puppy is the same way: He will never be upset if he never sees a dime out of our roommate because he doesn’t expect kindness to be repaid.

However, we’re not a freaking charity. We’re not here to just support people financially who are being total dipshits. We make sacrifices from time to time so that we can help other people out, but watching someone blow money like that and then cry about not having enough money for gas and such just tweaked me to no end. I’ve tried to rationalize it out and be ok with it, but it just pisses me off right now. I don’t like thinking “you owe me” about people I’m friends with: I tend to treat my friends as chosen family who I would do anything for…but this girl makes me think “you owe me.”