Christmas is always irritating. My dad is racist, my mom is stressed, and my sister was always my redeeming factor. But today, fuck, today, I am SO tired of their disgusting behavior.
They are republicans, and I get that people have dissenting opinions. Having differences of mind is important, it allows for growth and change. Nothing ever grows and changes for these fucking pricks. They are stuck in their ways, their hateful, selfish ways, and I am so sick and tired of it.
My sister is a good bit older than me, graduated and has a solid career, has her own house. I’m still in college, 2nd year, working as an asst. manager at a pizza place for 15.85$. CA. Tell me why my sister tried to tell me that I didn’t deserve tips because it was ”useless” to tip people who aren’t servers. She didn’t specify me, or my type of job, but why don’t I deserve tips? I provide excellent customer service, I solve issues, I run the restaurant for fuck’s sake. Then dropped the bombshell that minimum wage workers shouldn’t get tipped. At all.
Why not? Because according to them, it’s minimum wage! Duh! Obviously those stupid losers working minimum wage don’t deserve anything but the scraps of society. Fuck me and my long term partner trying to scrape through college, amiright? My parents are wealthy as shit, played the stocks right, and are willing to pay for a portion of my schooling, and she got hers fully paid for. But she doesn’t even understand an IOTA of what hard fucking work is. She doesn’t understand that she lavishes on the throne of luxury and mocks those holding her up. At the bare minimum, I understand and feel sick at the privilege I was given; I use my privilege to give back when I can. She doesn’t.
My family genuinely believes minimum wage isn’t the minimum amount required to live. That’s like, the actual dictionary definition of minimum wage. My dad actually said “it’s for entry level jobs only.” Cool, who’s going to work those jobs? There isn’t an infinite amount of teenagers willing to slave away for pennies. What about managers, who need to be 18+? It ain’t minimum, but it’s the closest to minimum they can get away with. It’s the fucking minimum greedy fucking money grubbing corporations can tease in front of people’s faces to keep them from leaving or starving to death.
And then my sister goes “well I lived off of 10$ an hour minimum wage!” No you didn’t, my parents paid for EVERYTHING for you. Bills, phone, car, insurance, gas, food, EVERYTHING! And they help me with it too! It’s a LUXURY to be able to work and put money away! What you got IS NOT UNIVERSAL!! I am absolutely lucky to be able to work and invest my money where I can return to stockpile later to pay off my debt to law school. She got her nursing school completely free, hands washed. But poor, poor her, she had to buy her own James Charles makeup palettes and fucking expensive ass clothes or whatever while her single mom coworker starved another night so her daughter could eat. What a great system.
Literally did the math in front of her that an individual cannot live on minimum wage. I did 16$ an hour, minimum wage is currently 15 and going up to 15.50 next year. Even on 16$, you couldn’t fucking make it! It comes out to 2560 a month WITHOUT TAX. With tax it’s like, 2200, and that’s generous. 1100 goes to rent, gone. 400 goes to utilities. Gone. 120 goes to gas. Gone. 300 on groceries, gone. Phone and Internet? 120, gone! Insurance snatches your remaining 160 and that’s the worst insurance you can get and you have NOTHING left. Not a red cent. No savings, no money for presents, no money for school, no money for that next fucking Chichi foofoo bronzer or rave in Vegas. AND SHE STILL DISAGREED WITH ME! And those numbers are extremely generous, especially in an inflated economy in the middle of winter.
And then she gives me that stupid look that she gives me when she pities me or feels bad for me. She gave me that look when I cried and told her I was scared my boyfriend would be homeless because his mom threw him out of the house. And she gave me the same. Fucking. Look. And said “Look, I just disagree with you!” As if I am some stupid idiot child and not a 20 year old pre-law student literally living in the world they claim doesn’t exist. They treat me like I’m stupid, treat me like an outcast and a fucking idiot for having a different opinion about basic human decency or the fucking economy. Because I’m young and stupid and don’t know anything. Yeah. That’s it. Obviously they couldn’t be wrong.
I live with privilege. I recognize it, and appreciate it. I give back what I can, and recognize the unfairness around me and that I alone did not build myself up from nothing. She doesn’t. My dad doesn’t. They came with the spoon in their mouths and didn’t bother to spit it out to see what others taste for a day. All they taste is silver, and this everyone must taste silver too, and if you don’t taste silver, it must be your own fault and you are a failure. I hate this ideology and I hate this world.