Nouveau Pauvre

The family that steals together starves together.

The year was this one, as I enter a classroom in an unimportant town in bum-fuck Merica. It smells of Lorna, or was it, Laura? Our cleaning lady, or should I say former, her name was Laura? No, wait, Laura was our cleaning lady in mother's Swiss vacation house, or was she the one in Florida?— I can't wait for my memory to improve. It smells like them, how they, the help smells, of depression and sweat mixed in the essence of cheap perfume and aluminum eroded deodorant.

'KA-CHING.'

Pop-pop would instruct my Babica, his wife number four sometimes gives them the custom-made perfumes in the hundred thousand dollar swag bags. Pop-pop hated the smell of desperation and depression. I find their smell comforting, and it was a clear distinction between who cleaned my shit-stained million thread sheets from who just sprayed the inside of the golden toilet. 

'KA-CHING.'

My memory, however, is still what's the word?— atercious? You know, broken and ugly or really, really bad. It feels like a marathon whenever I try to have a conversation. Especially now that I have to do my bidding, cleaning myself has never been so demeaning. I never realized how much time one spends feeding themselves — what a waste of time. If more people didn't need to pick up after themselves well, the world would be a better place.

'KA-CHING.'

'KA-CHING.'

My sense of smell is improving, a better condition than the year prior, my hearing and eyesight are still fluctuating; it depends on the day and the brightness of the surface. The wrinkles and liver spots on my skin seem to be fading away. Last year my skin looked like a three-week-old banana; now, I look like a two-week-old one. Not much improvement, but — Did I already said my memory is improving? —

'KA-CHING.'

'KA-CHING.'

'KA-CHING.'

After his third divorce, Pop-pop got smarter, or should I say he fired his old financial advisors and got some that are more tenacious. He was never a believer in the phrase "credit where credits due" if it came out of his mouth, it was his idea unless it incriminated him. He was joyous to share the blame and declare himself innocent and, most importantly, ignorant. Furthermore, Pop-pop started giving the same perfume to everyone in our households and making it part of the dress code. So it could mask whomever father was having "meetings" at his beauty pageants, a place where his lawyers handed out NDA's like fliers to a comedy show. You couldn't get inside that part of the building without signing compliance over a secret amongst yourself and Pop-pop. You could tell whom Pop-pop was screwing from their smell. 

'KA-CHING.'

Mother always said every minute she spent eating was a minute she lost, accruing her empire. I can't imagine the state of her empire if she had to cook. Hell she never even made me toast. Not that I could chew it, the edges would have severed the inside of my mouth, and the temperature of the bread and the butter could melt my tongue. But I see them eating this toast, the smell is delicious, and I can't wait to try it finally, maybe for my fifteenth birthday. Currently, my diet consists of purees, pudding, and pills.

'KA-CHING.'

Pop-pop, however, loved eating. He ate from different restaurants every day. Food prepared by disloyal staff is the main cause for the death of higher crust, pampered and poisoned. The most hated leaders of the world eat, spit, and snot, and piss, and, and rat poison, and shit, and yes cum, so instead of having a staff cooking for him, Pop-pop would ask to be driven to a different fast food joint where the food is already pre-prepared and randomly served. The worst he could get was diarrhea instead of a neurotoxin Epée3.