Middle-class woes? Let’s try poor

Challenges. That word was used four times in headlines in yesterday’s paper. I know, I counted them. We obviously face challenges – from sport to politics to money. And I couldn’t agree more: challenges are headline news in my world too.

It was the little story carried on Thursday that got my goat: Workers who signed up with Paymenow requested salary advances to cover transport costs to work 46% of the time, in comparison to 23% of payments that were used for food.

Well, pay me now. That’s one of my challenges too; getting to work. My skedonk is ever reliable, but hungry for petrol. I used to feed her at R500 a shot, which became R700 and now a royal R900 per tank.

Only problem is, my money didn’t double. In fact, it is guzzled up by more than petrol in just a few sleeps. So I baulked at my friend reminding me I have a roof over my head and a full belly. That middle-class statement doesn’t wash with me anymore.

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Can’t she see we don’t have a middle class anymore? Did she forget that our bellies are only full because of one thing: credit?

“It’s silly to buy food on credit,” my well-to-do ex told me once (I really should’ve married him). You use credit for big things like cars that aren’t guzzlers. And a house.”

All this I hear under the trees of a restaurant where he pays the R40 for my cup of black coffee without batting an eye. He would just never understand – unless I swipe That Card, my belly won’t be full. He has never lived off pasta.

He’s a vegetarian by choice, not because there is “only meat twice a week in this house”, as I told the kids. He has never quietly slipped a friend who’s got no veggies for her pasta a shopping bag with a couple of potatoes and carrots because you are the flush one at the moment.

“I’ll buy bread if you get the milk,” is a foreign concept to him because he has never bartered for anything. So yes, my friend, I have a roof over my head and a full belly, but it comes at a ridiculous price.

Get off your middle-class horse and just admit: unless you are well-to-do, like certain people I know, you are just plain poor.

At least I’m rich in blessings…