Growing Up White Trash

And Lovin' It

Yep. I grew up white trash. In a trailer. Never wore shoes, my babysitter was the family dog (and that's only half a joke) and Top Ramen was a food group in and of itself.

We were poor growing up. Really poor. Our furniture came from the dump. Rather, our furniture came from the neighbor's trailer after they had thrown it out. Twice a year, our trailer court would have an unofficial "furniture swap"- meaning, twice a year the garbage man would pick up for free the heavy belongings that families didn't want anymore but were too lazy to drive to the dumps themselves. Only problem was that the garbage men never got to haul any of this junk away.

We'd all spy on one another's front lawns, waiting to see what our neighbors would throw out. Then, in the middle of the night, after they'd tossed out their old TV, fridge, or hide-a-bed sofa, we'd sneak into their yard and steal it. It was a weird trade-off, because we'd see the same neighbor we'd just stolen our new couch from standing in our front lawn trying to drag away our roll of old moldy carpet.

Why we didn't just all have a good old-fashioned junk trade I don't know. All I know is that when the day came for the garbage men to pick up all our discarded stuff, they would have nothing to pick up.

We got our old freezer this way, and a birdcage, along with a high chair my youngest sister used. We were able to get a new hide-a-bed couch every two weeks because the second we'd see one on the curb my mom would send us youngsters out to haul it home.

My favourite stuffed animal came from a dumpster.

At one point the roof to our house was a blue tarp. I'm not kidding. The whole house was this eerie blue tint that warped every sense of colour matching. When we'd go outside we'd be shocked to see that one of our socks was black and the other was green. We'd squint in the actual sunlight, unused to being able to see in real colour. Our faces, our hands, weren't really sky blue- we weren't really smurfs.

All our movies came from the library, our meals often from the neighbor's house. Snacks were dry Top Ramen and pieces of white bread rolled into a firm ball that could be easily popped into the mouth.