I have a small house that is paid for, a 1.5 story Cape. Still, it's not mine because if I fail to pay property tax I lose it, but for the sake of argument I own it.
I have a 2009 Toyota Tacoma which is basically stripped in the driveway and that's paid off.
There's a 23 year old Miata in the garage that I saved from the boneyard and rebuilt with my hands and parts I scrounged off of Craigslist and the wrecking yards. I did put new shocks and good rubber on it.
So there's my expensive sports car. I suppose I could sell it for $2500 if I found a guy wanting a summer car for cheap.
My other hobbies are ham radio and competitive shooting. Ham radio costs me little in the winter and nothing in the winter because in season I run the whole shebang off of solar energy thanks to a solar panel I fished out of a dumpster and batteries I got in trade.
The radios themselves are a collection of open box, caught on sale and military surplus junk cobbled together. My bit antenna came from a previous owner and the other antenna is just a piece of wire strung between a pair of trees.
As for shooting, I make a few local matches a year and if I am DAMNED lucky, one or two out of town and generally sleep either on someone's couch, a $10 a night barracks room or (very rarely) a cheap motel. As for ammunition I buy components and make my own because it is cheaper than factory ammunition and shoots straighter.
My wife works so I can't call her a dependent so I guess my only dependent is a scruffy orange cat that doesn't eat very much.
In short, I am very much a blue collar working guy with no kids and no expensive vices or hobbies and lead a reasonably frugal lifestyle and might actually fish a Camel cigarette out of the freezer and have a couple snorts of middle of the road bourbon on a Saturday night.
Yet someone called me a rich white guy.
I suppose that puts me alongside the guys with suits and $50 cigars in some board room plotting the takeover of another Fortune 500 company but for some reason I don't see it.
Instead I see myself in a grubby oil stained set of khakis climbing into an insulated set of coveralls to go out on deck and freeze my ass off.
Actually I do enjoy my career but what it it, it is. I am not clad in a suit in a warm board room somewhere smoking a bit $50 cigar. I have never had a $50 cigar in my life.
The truth is that we're getting poorer as a country and the powers that be have simply redefined the definition of rich to be able to tax those of us that are productive to feed those of us that are not.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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