This happened, six or seven years ago. I was riding on my Trek bicycle that I had purchased a few months earlier. I happened to stop outside of my current church.
A person who I did not know told me that I ought not to have had the bike I owned because I was “too fat and poor.” Yow.
I was too stunned to come up with a treppenwitz response. I’ll own the fat part. But poor? What’s that about? Underpaid, yes. Did he think that because I was overweight, I must also be impoverished? Is there a racial component? I dunno.
This happened last summer. I went to a Friends of the Albany Public Library book discussion by an author. During the Q & A, I asked what I thought were some cogent questions. Afterward, I pulled out a $20 bill to buy his first book. He asked if I sure I could afford it. He then also gave me his third book for nothing.
Also last summer, my wife went to see our financial planner. It’s REALLY boring stuff for me. He sounds like the adults on any Charlie Brown TV special, and I’ve told him so. Still, what he said was that we had a 99% of having a “successful” retirement, based on the money that we – mostly my wife – have saved.
I actually had some extra money in my checking account because I started collecting Social Security a few months before I retired. The teller at my bank recommended I talk to one of their financial people. As it turns out, after meeting two different people, unless I had $15,000 to invest – I did not – the best rate I could get was 0.1% interest.
The next day, I took out $5000 and put it into a 9-month CD at my credit union at 2.13%, not great, but it’s something. I guess I’m NOT “too poor” to buy that book or even that bicycle. So THERE.
I quote my grad school buddy Craig:
“Some people’s children” and also “It doesn’t TAKE all kinds, there just ARE all kinds”
Around here, it’s often the poor people who ride bikes to get around! Because they can’t afford a car, and my city is not exactly bike friendly, so the assumption is people who ride a bike have no other option – in fact, a colleague of mine who used ride in fairly regularly (training for summer travels where he would be biking) said he often got stopped and offered rides….and he had to explain that he was biking for a reason….
Trek Bicycles originated here in Wisconsin. Everyone,and I mean EVryone rides everywhere here. Twelve months. Insanity.
As for the comments, people can be jerks, and there is no excuse for said jerkiness. Sad. Love, Amy