SOUTHERN EXPOSURE: WHEN GETTING BUY IS GOOD ENOUGH

There is one, and only one, benefit of being poor.

And don't let the fact that I drive around in that fancy spotted-gray 1988 Nissan Sentra fool you; I am monetarily challenged. Poor Richard's Almanac is my bible. I am the poster boy for poverty.

And through my long tenure in the Brotherhood of Those Who Borrow from the Parents, I have discovered the single benefit of being poor.

It is that I appreciate what I am able to buy.

I bought a pair of $7 sunglasses the other day. They are decidedly sharp, and I have been wearing them nonstop since the day I peeled the stickers off their plastic lenses. It makes me smile just to think that I have something new.

When I was a kid, we were really poor. My mom was raising me and my four siblings by herself. I still shudder when I think of some of the meals my mother used to make for us. She's not a great cook by nature and if you limit the resources she had to work with -- I don't want to think about it.

Even my mother's cooking turned out to have its benefits. I don't expect women to do all the cooking; in fact, I have kind of a nervous reaction when I see a woman in a kitchen. That makes me seem sensitive to the occasional date I have over for dinner, and that illusion is just fine with me.

The other benefit is I have developed an indiscriminate stomach. I can eat anything, prepared any way. The secret is to eat it fast before you have a chance to taste it.

But when I was a kid my mother would take me shopping with her once every six months or so. She'd have saved a little money and she would offer me a deal. I could have one new toy or as many books as I wanted.

I've always been one for quantity over quality so I went with the books. That is one of the most satisfying memories I have of my childhood, walking out of a newsstand with an armful of hardback brightly illustrated books. That also translated into a love of reading, which I guess led me to my current profession.

Which means I'm done-for.

Journalists are one of those happy breeds of workers who have chosen a profession because of love, not money. What is most ironic about being a reporter, at least in my case, is that everything I have done in my past has contributed both to my becoming a journalist and to remaining poor. The two go hand-in-hand.

I had to put myself through four years of college, at about $10,000 a year, just so I could graduate and take a job that would pay me almost enough to pay off my student loans, and live.

And when it comes to paying my bills, the collectors aren't too concerned if I live or not. All they want is their monthly payment, preferably on time. Like that ever happens.

It's funny how all the bill's are due at the beginning of the month. Don't they realize that most of us are paid throughout the month instead of one lump sum up front. Shouldn't they try and space out the bills instead of forcing us, the bill-ees, to clutter up our garbage cans with their insistent notices of late payments.

I even tried to eliminate the problem by signing up for gas, electric, phone and insurance late in the month. I figured they'd start the billing cycle at the time I started receiving the service. I've noticed that the due dates on the bills are steadily, and stealthily, climbing toward the first of the month. So much for good intentions.

But I guess when the only thing you've ever known is how to just get by, getting by is good enough. I'm going to enjoy my new sunglasses; in fact, I'm wearing them now. Just because they're that most coveted of all creations -- they're new.

~David Angier is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.