THE POOR LIFE

Hey, we know you’re poor, but can you maybe… be a little less obvious about it?

When the challenges of living in poverty invoke old trauma

It was a casual remark by my partner, he meant nothing by it.

“Yeah, since you started using the vinegar trick, no one has complained about the smell of my clothes.”

I stopped in my tracks like I had walked face first into a wall, stunned, like a deer in headlights.

I hadn’t known there had been an issue.

I do my best. The panic cycle in my head had begun. Our washer is a stackable unit affair, typical of apartment living and the cheapest model on the market. It will be here after we’re gone, serving future tenants, until it finally rattles to a clumsy halt and is replaced with another just like it. I run cycles to clean it on a monthly basis. I do the best I can.

My partner attempted to reassure me. It’s not that big a deal. It was just a little mildew smell that got noticed a few times when in close quarters working on a machine. Don’t worry about it.

I swallowed it down. Okay.

He was getting ready for work. He needed my help and neither one of us had time to deal with the truckload of trauma that just came flooding back.

People think we’re dirty.

I thought back to school. I thought back to all the times I would choose the cleanest piece of clothing I could find from the piles on the floor, hoping the wood and cigarette smoke smell from my parents always smoking in the house and the old wood furnace belching out clouds that filled the house wouldn’t be too obvious.

I knew they were. And if those odors weren’t enough, well, the mildew smell of clothes that had been walked on with wet feet and laid in piles would.

I tried; I really did. Every weekend, some school nights, I would pull from the piles on the floor, I would scrub with ice cold water bailed from the creek until my knuckles were bright and cracked. I would hang them out in the freezing cold to dry, bringing them in and laying them over the furnace vents. But without soap, without a proper washing machine, my efforts were mostly futile.

The clothes were marker enough without being dirty. My mothers’ manic phases would be punctuated by wild trips into thrift stores. I used to wonder where the money would come from. Eventually, I realized, staff didn’t want to challenge the crazy lady and just let her leave with whatever armloads she had gathered.

Those became my school clothes. It was a little easier for my brother. There’s more options to dress a girl in ridiculous things.

School was humiliating. It was also my only escape. School meant at least a few hours in a building that was consistently mostly warm except for a few drafts, that was mostly well lit, and most importantly, a midday meal.

So, this morning, when my partner casually remarked that his clothes had been a problem, I know he didn’t mean anything by it, but that doesn’t erase it from my head. It doesn’t take away the sting.

Outwardly, my reaction was to ask if it was better now. He assured me that since I started adding white vinegar to every load of laundry, there hasn’t been any mildew smell.

I want to say good, problem solved. Oh, how I wish it were that simple.

But even though vinegar is cheap, it’s not free. And at a cup a load of laundry being the minimum that makes a difference, it goes fast.

I look at the gallon jug I bought just over a week ago. I remember not so long ago when a gallon of vinegar was $2.99 and that only if it wasn’t on sale. It isn’t something that goes on sale anymore. This jug was $6.99.

Between decent laundry soap (we have to use a free and clear because of skin sensitivity issues), dryer sheets because the laundry balls that are so touted on Pinterest and Etsy don’t do shit for static and if you use them with essential oils just leave waxy buildup on your clothes over time, and now vinegar…

Laundry is expensive. But laundry is necessary.

I don’t want to be seen as the dirty people. We can’t afford to be seen as the dirty people.

I choke back the tears. No one is thinking that. Come on. It’s not that bad.

“No, it’s not, because you won’t let it be,” comes the answer in my mind.

It’s just another challenge.