Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
\nA young woman who works in my building looks to be about 24 years old.\u00a0 Chatty person, tell you her whole life story. Went to 2-year course for some paraprofessional thing, been working here 3 years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>She has student loans, of course.\u00a0 She racked up credit card debt then consolidated that into another loan.\u00a0 Old car was junk, bought a new one, has a car loan.\u00a0 Constantly texting her friends about how tough it is, using her brand-new hand-held computer with unlimited data plan, all on convenient monthly payments.\u00a0 Every month is down to the wire.\u00a0 Getting married this fall, needs to save money. Moved back in with her fiancee\u2019s parents to save on rent.\u00a0 Money is tight.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>Okay, listen, I get it.\u00a0 I know about stretching the budget. I worked days while I went to law school nights.\u00a0 My wife and I raised three kids and that ain\u2019t cheap.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been there. \u00a0Nothing wrong with that.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>She\u2019s got an appointment to get Lasik surgery.\u00a0 She\u2019s tired of wearing glasses.\u00a0 She wants to be to see without them.\u00a0 Yes, it\u2019s $1,000 or so but she\u2019ll save money in the long run because she won\u2019t be buying glasses every year.\u00a0 It\u2019s not an indulgence, it\u2019s an investment, see?<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>I bumped into her in the hall a moment ago.\u00a0 She was running out to Subway to buy lunch because she doesn\u2019t get up early enough to pack a lunch and besides, sandwiches get dried out and that\u2019s just gross.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>Why do I feel so old, all of the sudden?<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>Joe Doakes<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
We’ve got a generation – or part of one – that’s never really known want, and, since their Depression-era relatives are mostly gone, haven’t heard about it.<\/p>\n
What\u00a0would\u00a0<\/em>they know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: A young woman who works in my building looks to be about 24 years old.\u00a0 Chatty person, tell you her whole life story. Went to 2-year course for some paraprofessional thing, been working here 3 years.\u00a0 \u00a0She has student loans, of course.\u00a0 She racked up credit card debt then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62561,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62560\/revisions\/62561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}