fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3999 ]

[ SECRET POST #3999 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3999 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Louisa May Alcott, Little Men]

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03. https://i.imgur.com/lIKsZNu.jpg
[too big]

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09. [SPOILERS for Stranger Things]

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10. [SPOILERS for Stranger Things]

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11. [WARNING for discussion of abuse]

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12. [WARNING for discussion of RL death]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #572.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What is a habit or way of thinking that you have that only someone from your area, socioeconomic level, etc. Would understand?

Judging from the responses I've had at work... eating hotdogs/hamburgers on normal bread instead of specifically hotdog and hamburger buns.

I grew up in a lower class single parent home, so yeah, fancy buns weren't ever getting bought. Things are much better now, and my whole family is solidly middle-class socioeconomically these days, but I mostly work with people who were always middle/upper class and the idea of using bread in lieu of fancy buns is apparently something 'only trailer trash' would do.

(Too bad for them, I still prefer normal bread instead of buns for things like that.)

Yes! My sister's boyfriend thinks it is so weird! But we did it all the time.

Man there's all kinds of poor people food like this. I still don't bother buying buns most of the time bc like why?

Don't forget quesadillas made in the microwave. (Or, peanut butter and jelly or sugar+cinnamon on a tortilla, because they were cheaper than a loaf of bread.) Turning boxed mac n cheese into a "meal" by adding a can of diced tomatoes or some chopped up hot dogs. So many things. I ate so much of that crap as a teenager. Buying a can of vienna sausages as like a "fancy" thing to have hahaha. And one of my favorites was making "dessert" that just consisted of butter on a cold piece of white bread and then sprinkling some sugar on it.

When I moved to the rich kid school, I went over ot people's houses and it was like wtf what is all this food? They had fancy name brand soda rather than just koolaid mix and goldfish crackers or triscuits or something rather than saltines.

YES! I've done all of this and, honestly, my comfort food when I'm feeling down is still a lot of this.

butter on a cold piece of white bread and then sprinkling some sugar on it

I USED TO DO THIS TOO! I didn't even see it as a poverty thing, just as something I could make as a kid (since my parents didn't allow a lot of sweets in the house, which in retrospect *was* partly a financial issue, as well as a health issue, but I didn't get that at the time). I figured it was like cinnamon-sugar toast, but without the toasting or the cinnamon.

And one of my favorites was making "dessert" that just consisted of butter on a cold piece of white bread and then sprinkling some sugar on it.

Brown sugar on hot buttered toast is the best version of this. I still make this when I feel like a sweet snack. :)

That dollar bread solved many issues ! Hotdogs were had in these when we didn't have buns or they weren't on sale. And we'd but the store/off brand buns. And if we had buns, but no sliced bread, yes, we made sandwiches of all sorts in those.

My family definitely wasn't rich but I wouldn't call us poor either - and this is something we did. Sometimes we had buns if we were having a barbecue? but most of the time, burgers were a QUICK meal that we made when we didn't feel like cooking a big thing, or when we were just craving burgers, and who wants to go out just for buns when we have perfectly useful bread right here? with the cost of the buns and the gas, it's wasteful as well as inconvenient, also not something I EVER thought twice about or figured anyone would judge me for

but I tend to not like people who call other people "trash", so

People who abuse animals. I just don't get it. Something that is completely dependent on you and is affectionate and gives so much, and you decide to hurt it or not feed it? I don't get it.

"What is a habit or way of thinking that you have that only someone from your area, socioeconomic level, etc. Would understand?"

Wait, are you implying that people who are not from your area or your socioeconomic level understand abusing animals? I'm confused as to what area or group this is supposed to be about

Oh, god, I missed that. I've taken a pain pill and clearly didn't read clearly enough. I just thought it said something that people do that you don't understand.

This is true, though. People from rural areas engange in some terrible animal abuse practices that would not be tolerate in cities, for instance.

Re: People just don't understand

(Anonymous) - 2017-12-16 05:15 (UTC) - Expand

"Something that is completely dependent on you and is affectionate "

Sad to say but for abusive types that's what they actually LIKE about animals (and children). Makes it easier.

I don't get it either, but it's a certain mindset.

I've read a book where some kids abused a dog. It was explained later on that they grew out of it and turned into good adults. I think it is possible. The author is pretty good and it rang true.

Ooops. Missed the actual question. Well, I've never been actually poor. But being a missionary kid, dependent on other people's money, money they often don't give even after pledging to, means not knowing from one month to the next if your family will have enough money. Now as a grown up I have a problem with the job and the whole system. But someone who has a steady, decent wage couldn't understand that feeling of not knowing if you'll have enough for food (some months we ate rice and beans).

I haven't had to survive on rice and beans. But I do hate the attitude of "it's only money." When I'm down to my last $1.50 for the fortnight, I'm not going to spend on anything but survival.

Yup. Money is important when you don't have much of it. As a kid, you don't always notice what is going on. Our parents hid it from us as much as they could when it was a bad month. But a small amount of money can really make a big difference.

Poor people problems in general I guess. (at the current moment anyway)

Also when I lived with restrictive parents I had sooo many people sit there trying to tell me how easy it was to get.. shit..like a whole driver's ed education in secret from my parents.

And all of their suggestions hinged on having people willing to drive me who wouldn't tip off my parents or just not as restrictive and occasionally controlling parents. Yes Billy Bob you may be able to sneak things past your folks,but mine will grill me over spending over an hour walking through the massive neighborhood we live in.

(and being unbelieving that i didn't just walk over to Cook Out at night, in the dark, as a 5ft 4 175lb woman in North Carolina, sure. sure.)

I grew up poor and we never bought anything at full price. I never thought it was weird until middle school when someone pointed out that it's weird to brag about how much your mom saved during back to school shopping. I can afford to now, but I still clip coupons and wait for sales. I feel like I waste money if I buy at full price.

Man my family is rich and we still used coupons and stuff all the time. My parents were very frugal and cautious with their money and that's a large reason behind why we WERE rich - because they didn't go spending all willy-nilly.

Mom pulls in six figures from her investments, but, goddamnit, we have a kitchen draw full of swiped restaurant sugar packets because "you never know".

And another full of restaurant mints.

...and a cup in the fridge full of fast food ketchup and mustard packets...

And holy shit, our plasticware collection has to be seen to be believed!!

AND THE NAPKINS. The ancient napkin collection! You can stack those fuckers two feet high, and it's still ripping them into quarters as needed.

The cupboard with a big stack of throw-away pie tins... admittedly, these are super handy to bake little things in, but still. We don't need two dozen slowly corroding throw-away pie tins from grocery store pies past.

She has tons of these "I grew up on rations surrounded by bomb craters" low key hoarding habits.

Edited 2017-12-16 03:44 (UTC)

This sounds like my grandparents. My grandmother had amassed quite the washed-out peanut butter jar collection by the time they decided to downsize and move into an apartment. Frugality is nice, but when you're clearly not actually re-using the things you save, it's just stuff taking up space.

I’m still not sure how to classify my upbringing. Like, we lived blocks from the beach in a tourist town growing up, and my parents rented a a 3 unit apartment behind our house who would sublet the other units. But time a prospective tenant flipped out because “omg there’s a homeless guy breaking into the garage!” The renter had to explain that nope, that was the landlord, aka my dad.

He and my mom had a couple of times when they had to bring multiple forms of ID to Costco to prove they weren’t homeless people sneaking in for free samples. My dad’s truck had the doors tied shut with rope and if he took a fast corner, they’d fly open. The only clothes I had new were shoes, socks, and undies—shoes from Payless, or later my mom’s old ones, socks and underwear from Target, before Targetvwas fancy, if I was lucky. We ate popcorn in milk instead of cereal.

But I had health insurance and braces and never went hungry, so I knew I wasn’t like my friends who lived in tiny apartments with no windows who were ashamed when other kids would bully them because they had holes in their underwear. But they could have sugar and white flour and I would hoard my weekly quarters and sneak off to 7-11 for candy and get hit and screamed at by my dad if I was caught. We only had meat on holidays and birthdays or when we had company, or sometimes a little bit in soup.

I didn’t know until my dad, who’d never done drugs harder than weed in his twenties, got stung by a stingray and then got shingles within a month or so, became addicted to pain killers and then street drugs, that my parents were millionaires. When I was a toddler we lived in a tiny camper and I got bathed in a bucket. I lived in a party dress I got in fifth grade for weeks because it was new and I never got new clothes. All my bedroom furniture came from the alley. My dad spent over a million dollars on drugs before my mom finally divorced him.

The fake poverty of my childhood was good training for my teens and adulthood now that I have to scrape by on not much. I just wish I’d been able to have a rich kid’s childhood and not a weird hybrid where no-one I talk to about my childhood understands. I’m not ungrateful or suicidal enough to have wished for a childhood spent in real poverty.

People who grew up poor think I’m one of them until I mention going on a school trip to London in middle school, or having one of the first color Apple computers as a kid. People who grew up middle class don’t understand how I could think of instant cup of soup, or grape soda, or chocolate, any chocolate, as unattainable luxuries.

I don’t rub shoulders with many rich people these days, but in my high school, where most kids got new sports cars at 16, I had basically three changes of clothes, all from thrift shops. I couldn’t have told you what clothes were “in” if you held a gun to my head. Even now, I tend to buy one comfy pair of shoes and wear them until they fall off.

My childhood didn’t fit neatly into a box and now that I’m an adult, I feel like nobody except maybe someone who grew up in a fringe cult would understand what it’s like to look back on, or to reminisce aloud about, and have everybody, from the person who spent their tenth birthday homeless to the one who didn’t have to worry what Ivy League school they’d attend because their dad had an auditorium named after him from all the money they’d donated, look at me like I grew up on Pluto.

Food is a really strange thing to save money on. Good food is important for health.