Scrambling Eggs in a Flea Market Wok

Being poor is a bitch.

Okay, so, that’s not exactly a revelation. There’s an entire developing world that can testify to how much being poor really does suck. Places where people live in shanty towns and goats are used as currency. Places where people don’t have rooms stuffed full of books and movies and artsy candles – or rooms at all, for that matter. Places where animal hospitals and iPhones and clean running water are the stuff of legend. 

And, yes, I understand there’s a fundamental irony in complaining about the state of my finances as I sit on my sheet-swathed,queen-sized bed and type on my laptop – the laptop my parents bought for me out of the goodness and kindness of their hearts because I can barely afford my morning coffee. No one will ever let me starve or live without air conditioning or wear Toms with holes in them. I am, in all honesty, the picture of first world problems.

That being said, being poor is a pain in the ass.

Poverty isn't just an annoyance.Annoying is the cowlick in the front of my hair that gives me the early 90s Eric Matthews bangs – the same bangs I have to straighten until they’re smoking in order to look the part of the Nico-esque hipster I am at heart. Annoying is the knowledge that the pizza I love in the deepest part of my soul is sitting directly on my ass cheeks. Annoying is the desire to wear heels to work but having the tired feet of a 90 year old woman who’s missing her Dr. Scholl’s inserts. Nope, being poor is its own special kind of soul-crushing,idea-deflating, dream-killing pain in the ass. Indigence is a state of mind.

It’s not just that I live below the poverty line or even the fact that most of the other twenty-somethings I know are also defined by law as working class. I can live with the idea that I’m not the fattest cat on the block. I’m cool with it. If the Wall Street movies have taught us anything, it’s that being rich heightens your propensity toward douchiness. (And also that Michael Douglas looks hot in suspenders.) One minute you’re working hard for your share, and the next minute you’re running red lights in an Audi and sexting somebody on the side. In truth, I don’t actually have any great desire to be wealthy. But I hate – absolutely LOATHE – knowing that my life, my future is limited by money.Or, more accurately, my lack of money. Honestly, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep my dreams alive when my bank statement continuously reads-$20.17 at the end of every month and thus affirms that my dreams have nowhere to go. And let’s face it: I’m not fighting the good fight every day because I just think it’s so neat being single, broke, and without connections. Dreams are what I live on.

I didn't actually appreciate exactly how destitute I was – am – until one Saturday morning of the (incredibly) recent past. I was cooking two allotted eggs in my and the roommate’s one and only pan, the wok my dad bought for me on one of his scavenging trips to the local flea market. (That fact alone should give you a fair amount of context for the remainder of this anecdote.) Anyway, at that point, I’d cooked so many eggs in the wok that the bottom was covered in a thin film of egg residue that wouldn't come off in the dishwasher or by the power of my (not so considerable) elbow grease. I was in the middle of thinking to myself, “Ugh, you’re such a hypocrite.Why couldn't you have gotten the free-range eggs?? You claim to care – ” And then it suddenly hit me.

I CAN’T AFFORD THEM.

Yep, that’s right. The two dollar difference between cheap, dyed, processed eggs birthed by lady chickens so fat they can’t stand on their own legs anymore and the cage-free eggs collected from chickens that had the freedom to run around on their little chicken farms might actually land me in financial ruin. (Which, by the way, is a line I toe on a bi-weekly basis.)

It was in that moment, while the egg residue adhered to the bottom of my (now) wrecked wok that I finally realized the truth of the matter: I can’t actually afford much of anything. Of the $800 a month I earn courtesy of my ever-so-fruitful vocation, half goes to rent and the other half goes to bills, leaving me roughly $40 a month with which to eat and buy gas. So, when I say I’m dirt fucking poor, I’m not actually exaggerating.Eggs could feasibly break the bank.

The rest of my morning followed with me eating my eggs on a microwave-warped Target plate surrounded by the tatters of my dreams and taking inventory of the things I’d more than likely have to forfeit in order to keep myself alive. Hence, the list:

Things I Can’t Afford

1. My cellphone. (Thank God for my sister.)

2. Furniture.The only piece of furniture I've ever purchased is a velvet pea-green chair on wheels from a consignment shop. It was $25.

3. Cable. I watch a lot of religious paid-programming in Hebrew.

4. Groceries.But I've learned that Cream of Mushroom soup and rice don’t taste half bad together.

4. My cats.Every poop is another dollar out of my pocket. (But I don’t give a rat’s ass.I’ll starve.)

5. Driving.Gas is apparently filtered with gold.

6. Men.Therapy is pricey.

7. Taco Bell.

8. A social life. Mixed drinks ain't cheap. And I can only drink so much PBR.

9. Sex. For a number of different reasons. But mostly because birth control costs me $20 a month  Thanks, Far Right.

10. The bohemian lifestyle I dreamed about when I was a kid. It takes dinero to live the life of a busted bluegrass hippie. Drugs aren't free, kids.

And those are just the important things.

What it all comes down to is that being a twenty-something has become so synonymous with being poor that I didn't actually even know I was poor. We’re so conditioned to think that our twenties are going to be this marvelous exploratory time where we backpack across Europe and rent quirkily-decorated lofts and buy Our First Grown Up Things, like cars and appliances and bed frames. And then one day you realize you’re sleeping on your parents’ old mattress (on which you were more than likely conceived) and your driver’s side mirror is held together with electrical tape. You can’t afford to have dreams because you can barely afford to have a life.

It’s that reality – that monetary bitch slap – that makes being a twenty-something one of the weirdest times of your life. Because even though you know that you probably won’t be spending a year sipping coffee in Montmartre and writing your first great novel in your Moleskine notebook, the dream won’t die. And that’s the paradox: we’re all too poor to pay for the cage-free eggs and the social responsibility it represents,but not being able to buy those damn eggs and spare those damn chickens is what propels us. It fuels our rage. It gives us something to push against. It makes our dreams even larger and even brighter and even more mythical. Being poor’s a bitch, but it’s the bitch that gives us a reason.

And every now and then, you catch a break.

(My roommate got a frying pan for Christmas.)

All original content copyright Kimberly Turner, 2013-2013.