Well, I gine tell you something: doan leh nuhbody fool ya; it is a rough going down nowadays. As soon as two cents get in ya hand, it gone long quick, quick so and more than half the time ya ain’t got nutten tuh show fuh it.
It ain’t easy, hear?
I keep asking myself what the France I working for? It’s like if I only living and working tuh pay bills evah single month, soul.
Evahbody know dat if ya want the uses of a service, ya gine have tuh pay for it, but ya mean tuh tell me dat ya cahn even buy a snow cone after paying fuh these basic services?
Look, I know dat I am not alone in the way I feel right now; I know dat duh got all kinds o’ people out there who evah single month does be scratching out duh hair roots just trying tuh make ends meet after duh done pay the light bill, the water bill, the gas bill and the telephone bill; the bare basics; bare conveniences.
Now dat ain’t got nutten tuh do wid the body who want tuh see a li’l bit o’ wha’ going on in the outside world in sports or world affairs, and decide tuh scrunch and squeeze out a li’l piece o’ change tuh pay fuh the bare basic package from either CBC Multi-Choice or Starcom DirecTV; dah is another bill.
Then if ya got a li’l puma like me dat just helping you tuh get from home tuh church or drop the li’l people tuh school when the morning come or drop in by the supermarket tuh pick up a few items – oh Lord, doan leh we talk ’bout dat, doan leh we guh there at all, but dat is another bill, okay? Food and gas! And listen, the supermarket ain’t only another bill but another story altogether.
Look, I sitting down here writing this column and I ain’t gine tell you nuh lie: it got muh poor head hurting muh bad enough just thinking ’bout it. You see the car gas? I swear dem gas attendants does be pumping air in the gas tanks; it doan last nuh longer than a snow cone in a desert. Ya only gotta drive from the bottom o’ Spring Garden tuh the top and the needle does be hitting the empty mark.
But leh we look at this whole thing rationally; you think a woman like me who only got a TV, a microwave and a toaster oven, an electric iron, a fan and a li’l CD player, things dat does only be on when ya want dem – the only thing dat is always on morning noon and night would be the fridge – got any right paying over two hundred dollars in electricity when the month come?
And you think dat I should be paying the telephone company sixty-something dollars fuh a service dat is as poor as pee even when my phone ain’t working, like all like now so? Duh doan reimburse ya, duh doan give ya nuh kinda credit pon ya bill, duh doan see dat the body was inconvenienced fuh over two tuh three weeks, the time dat it like it does tek fuh dem tuh get tuh you. But if ya want a phone, ya does have tuh pay the bill, wukking or not, or duh gine cut it tuh France off – just so.
Then ya does have tuh pay the insurance pon the house, the land tax, the road tax and the insurance pon the car or the police might stop ya pon the road and next thing ya know ya gine have yet another bill tuh pay the court and ya still have tuh pay the insurance if ya doan want tuh find ya’self in dat predicament again.
I ain’t even gine waste my good precious time talking ’bout the supermarket at all. When I go in there nowadays, I carrying a list and I mekking sure dat I pick up the bare basics. What I could do wid-out, I doing wid-out and I gine mek do wid what I have.
I see there in the NATION newspaper the other day, an article written by Ezra Alleyne wid a picture of Owen Arthur when he was Prime Minister, wid a big able garden fork in he hand. Look, dat is the way tuh go, hear? If wunna never do it or had tuh do it, it ain’t too late tuh learn. As the old people would tell ya, better late than never.
I does hear people saying dat ya cahn eat the money, so wha’ li’l bit ya got ya does have tuh spend it. Dat is one side, but nowadays ya gotta spend it wisely.