poverty my mistress of my misfortune/ part whatever

poverty my mistress of my fortune/ part whatever

fiction
edward w pritchard


Fat old sweaty poverty came knocking at the door again early this morning. The biker gang she has been staying with over on old Kenmore blvd must have kicked Poverty out again for stealing hash and thunder-bird wine.

As soon as Poverty showed up my trac phone disappeared or went hiding. Maybe my phone got tossed out with the trash last night in preparation for the 6am junk truck's weekly visit. The trash guys always manage to bang around the plastic cans and wake me from my nightly dreams of fame and fortune.

More serious than a missing cell phone, no one calls me anyway, the car needs an oil pan replacement. It's a cheap repair, less than 75 bucks, I will have to save up for that but meanwhile it's 14 dollars a trip to drive the car anywhere for the four quarts of on sale discount 10W- 40 oil at the auto zone.

 Maybe  in a week or two I can save enough for the oil pan repair meanwhile the trips up to the casino are breaking me at fourteen dollars for oil each way and my mistress poverty who always has to tag along to the casino always wants the more expensive late afternoon buffet and worse she only makes maximum bet on the slot machines so she can lose faster but have a better chance for a monster jackpot.

Poverty loves the uniformed security guards at the casino especially the half Latino, half black ones and she tips them real well. Poverty won't let me tip the pretty waitresses though, she says they get a steady wage so those waitresses can just live on that.

Poverty has been doing a lot of bitching this week about the cheap cable that I have here at the house that I stay at. There's no HBO or showtime and she needs to watch a lot of pay for view porno and stuff like that and I have no credit standing at all with the cable companies because of my low credit score. In fact if I don't upgrade my cable soon mistress Poverty has threatened to move out to the West side and stay there.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if Poverty moved in with Lebron James out there on the West side, that is if Lebron lost the  big basketball championship going on now by actually breaking a bone in his ankle and not keeping on playing despite the pain and having to give all the money he ever made back and sink again into the Poverty he was born to.

Even though I hate having Poverty around my house I wouldn't want her to leave to plague Lebron James. It's hard to endure poverty even for a while once you have by circumstance risen above it and ole Lebron doesn't deserve that.

Let Lebron James keep his fame and fortune, Lebron is an inspiration to the rest of us; it does us who are in Poverty now know that if a bunch of rich guys will pay over $3,000 dollars a game for a seat near the bench where Lebron sits when not risking life and limb on the basketball court at the playoff games there is hope for us at the bottom of society.

So Lebron if Poverty comes calling out at your big house on the far west side of Akron don't let her in even for a minute. Poverty can be very hard to get rid of especially if you have known her before.