“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
- Charles Bukowski

Previously, I’ve used this column as a forum to attack economics, political bias, and even those silly abstinence-only morons. But this column marks a special occasion. I’m going to relate my prime gripe, the brain-dead hypocrisy of the prosperous.

You’re used to seeing me try to cater to both sides? The kid gloves are off on this one. I have childhood trauma to thank for that. I was the “poor kid” in grade school. Later, I was the poor kid in college. I worked my neurotic little arse off at dining halls, telemarketing facilities, grocery stores, convenience stores, and nursing homes for bottom-barrel pay. Meanwhile, my wealthy peers complained about not having a trendy car, not being able to find the latest designer jeans, and not getting their eight hours of sleep because of some “stupid” 8 a.m. classes.

Pardon me, Mr.and Ms. Moneybags, but sleep is a luxury when you don’t have coddling parents watching your back. For some of us, college is the only way out. We don’t have the luxury of squandering it for a few extra hours of shut-eye. One of my mantras is “Sleep is for the weak.” We’re all better off with a full eight hours, but who has time for that luxury? Oh, yeah—you do.

You know that credit card you maxed out your freshman year of college? If I’d done that, I’d be spending my days hanging up on creditors and biting my fingernails down to the quick. You’ve got a safety net made of money. You’re part of the next generation of know-it-all, spoiled chumps who’ll run this country some day. I hate your guts lots.

Point of pride: Does it make me better than you that I’ve had to train my body to run on minimal sleep, that I couldn’t afford a car until 24, and that I didn’t have health insurance from middle school until my first year of graduate school? Yes. Yes it does. I did it and you didn’t. I don’t think you could have. It may have driven me insane in the process, and the inferiority complex is, I must admit, a hell of a burden but I’ve got an edge on you.

This is a two-way street. You hate me, too. Believe me, I tried calling a truce; class resentment is a nasty enterprise. But every time I tried to ease into tolerance of you and your senseless pontificating, I was reminded that you wealthy people don’t understand anything that isn’t accompanied by a dollar sign—namely, people.

Examples include New River Valley billionaire R.J. Kirk, whose speech at my 2007 RU undergraduate graduation included advice to “never do anything for money. Never settle. Do only what you want to do.” I remember looking to a friend from West Virginia and seeing the same look of disgust I wore on my own face. Who was Kirk to tell us to never work for money? (Memo to Mr. Kirk: Once you or your children have spent a summer or two pulling soiled diapers out of bins for $6.40 an hour, come back to me, and then we’ll talk about never settling in life.)

Another pet peeve: You seem to think that if you spend lots of money on something, it distinguishes it from its lower-class equivalent. Alcohol is, in all its forms, addictive. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen you and your wealthy friends whine about us commoners addicting ourselves to beer and liquor. While you spat that ill-conceived vitriol, weren’t you finishing your second bottle of $60 wine? Sorry, mate: You’ve got the same disease as those low-rent, blue-collar Joes you so despise. Just because you spent big money on it doesn’t make it any better than Jim Beam. Wine is good for your heart? One glass might be healthy, Spanky. Two bottles ain’t one glass. That’s $120 of dead brain cells. Your liver hates you. I do, too.

My number one gripe is when you complain about being punished for having money. Of the people I know who’ve forced their way from relative poverty to relative comfort—something that is, may I add, harder to do than ever before—none of them mind paying higher taxes. While the welfare system is flawed and needs revision, we need it. Sensible people get that. You don’t. (Go figure.)

People with more money should pay more taxes. It’s a no-brainer. Ever notice how the people who gripe about taxes are the people who drive yachts and eat only at upscale restaurants? Yeah, they’re awful, those taxes. They’ll break your wallet in two.

Another example of those oh-so-poor well-to-do folk is the whole financial aid debacle. Financial aid isn’t a limitless money pool. It gets divvied out among students classified as being in need. There are, therefore, criteria for who gets aid and who doesn’t. Those criteria aren’t perfect. When are they ever? If your parents make over $80 grand a year, and if you don’t qualify for financial aid as a result, then I have a very hard time feeling sympathy for you.

I understand that the system isn’t perfect, and that debt isn’t taken into account on the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), but if familial debt was accumulated from trips to the Caymans, or from buying a house in a swanky neighborhood, then the problem doesn’t lie in the system, but in your family’s spending habits.

I once had a roommate lie on his financial aid request and then throw a fit when RU’s Office of Financial Aid requested his parents’ 1040 forms. “It’s not fair!” he said. But I think it is fair. Was he able to pay for college without those loans? Of course he was. Did his parents perhaps have to downscale their annual $14 billion vacation to Mars? I don’t know. I don’t care. I worked 32 hours a week and he didn’t.

My favorite of you to hate are those of you who criticize the working class under the umbrella of “I support myself, and you don’t hear me complaining!” Here we go: You support yourself? Really you do? I think you’re omitting some relevant details. Do you pay all of your bills, or only some of them? And who do you call when you get in over your head? “Mom/Dad, can I have a small loan?” (Unspoken: “I spent everything I had on $4 organic apples and $8 imported beers at the most expensive watering hole in town. Bailout, please!”)

Speaking of bailouts: Could I draw a parallel between wealthy bailing out fiscally oblivious children and the government bailing out fiscally oblivious executives? Do you think these executives ever had to ration themselves on Ramen noodles and PBR? Doubtful.

Gosh! I’ve nearly neglected another of my peeves, politicians who supposedly built themselves up from nothing! Ah, yes—because everyone loves a self-made man. Sorry to disappoint, but poor people don’t get into politics. Lawyers get into politics. Poor lawyers are like two-headed sheep. They’re out there, but chances are, you’re never going to see one. The “poor politician” is a time-tested, highly-effective PR maneuver. Even in Lincoln’s time this was true. Lincoln wasn’t exactly bathing in gold, but his family had money. The fact of the matter is, the “rags to riches” motif is appealing to us because it’s more or less a fantasy. The poor stay poor. That’s the status quo.

If the American Dream were half as real as you maintain it is, there’d be no one to ring you up at the organic foods store. If the dream were vivid, who’d serve your lobster tails and caviar at the country club? The American Dream is a dream. Better yet, it’s a sensational marketing tool. Give people hope for the future and they’ll be content pumping your gas. Tell them they’re locked into the American caste system, they might just opt for unemployment. We can’t have that, can we?

I know there’s another side to this story, but I don’t care. This topic takes my piss-and-vinegar. Maybe you moan and groan over abortion. Maybe you get up in arms over hunting, preservatives, and cruddy cable programming. Me? I don’t like you or anyone else in your snobby neighborhood. Your lifestyle makes me angry. If that makes me every bit as judgmental as you are, then fine. I didn’t get to be this way overnight. I tried accepting you and your wicked ways, but it can’t happen. It’s too late for that now.

You don’t like people who grew up like I did, else you look down at us with pity. I don’t need your pity. Truth is, I pity you and yours. You may have benefitted from a more stable upbringing, and that private school you attended may have imbued you with more book smarts in a year than I ever received in Martinsville City public schools—but I’ve lived like you can’t. I’ve survived in your world, this world that hates me. I’ve accumulated a lot of bitterness living like I have, but I value what I’ve accomplished.

You say you’re going for a Ph.D. in Economics? I got an English degree from a third-rate liberal arts college. I took out loans, worked dining halls, walked to Wal-Mart every weekend, and refused medical care because I had no insurance. Yeah, I got you beat, no matter how much you end up shelling out for that gas-guzzling Hummer.

If you’ve never worked a true crap job, and had to work it, then you’ve never been made to feel like crap. If you’ve never been made to feel like crap, then you are crap—because you can’t accept yourself as being anything but the opposite of crap. Well, you’re still crap. You’re going to die and you’re going to be forgotten. I’m going to die. Our parents are going to die, too.

They’ll shove us all in pine boxes—some of them elaborate, some of them modest. But decomposition will occur, and no matter how much cash went into the service, we’ll all deteriorate in both the flesh and in the memories of those we leave behind. No one can ever value you like you value yourself.

Next time you’re on your way to your favorite Italian restaurant, and you scoff at an overweight family pulling their Geo Metro into the McDonalds drive-through, consider where you’d be if you hadn’t been born into your lot. Of course, you still would have excelled. You would never have settled for that life, would you? Were it you, you would have made more of yourself. Because it’s you.

Keep on thinking that way. I’ll keep on thinking this way: I could have been born into the same ignorance that you were. I wasn’t. I thank McDonalds, K-Mart, Goodwill, Riverside Flea Market, Christmas Cheer, food stamps, rain on tin roofs, hand-me-down underwear, Rental Assistance, FAFSA, Big Lots, family counseling, SSRIs, depression, self-loathing, resentment, substance abuse, envy, and acceptance that I wasn’t.

I don’t want to be like you. You make me sick. I’d rather be in that burger-bound Geo, or even sipping Wild Irish Rose under a discarded refrigerator box. Even destitute is better than oblivious … than you.

Charles Smith is a Southwest Virginia native and is a bit peeved right now. Don’t make Charles angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.