Six million Americans go to sleep hungry, they tell us. Another three million are cold. Eight million more have sniffles and millions of us go to bed under-deodorized and consequently smelly. And don’t forget 30 million of our countrymen who suffer from allergies. There’s something about getting in bed and living in America that just begs for calamities.
As my Aunt Thelma said when she lost on the lottery, WHERE do they get these numbers.
Just last night on TV, an ex Hollywood gigolo - all dressed up in a white smock - either a Research Scientist or a patient ready to have his gall bladder exorcised - told me that 8 million Americans suffer from headaches. I somehow turned away from this riveting message to address my wife, “You ever have a headache?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she says, “frequently.”
“You ever met that guy on the screen?”
“No.”
“He never asked you if you suffer from headaches?”
“No.”
“Damn!” I said, “eight million and ONE! This is serious.”’
If you add ‘em all up, the population of the U.S. is 600 million cold, allergic, sick, and hungry bodies. Of course, there could be some overlap, which would get us to a realistic population number, but still that means there’s a bunch of multiple sufferers.
And if that isn’t depressing enough, a spokesman from guess what oval industry tells me 8 million Americans drive on unsafe tires.
I get a chuckle out of that. In the mid 50’s I drove a car with tires that not only lacked treads, but whose writing on the sidewall had been erased by curbs and weather and just plain ol’ time. In the winter, they gripped like a hockey puck. But that car was totally safe, since it was as mobile as the Rock of Gibraltar. It just sat in the driveway and collected snow on its roof. The car needed thirty dollars worth of something. Since we didn’t have thirty dollars, we didn’t listen carefully to the last part of the mechanic’s statement.
We fulfilled several of t hose misery indexes. We went to bed cold, hungry for lobster and chateau Briand, poor, and ill clothed. And I owned a stationary car - a ‘53 Studebaker - with slick tires because I was a college student. Rich in love, but poor in dollars, as I’d tell the wife. Women need inspiration, you know.
Mercifully, we had no TV so we suffered poverty, and at least one stopped up nostril every night. And we never knew it. The four horsemen of the apocalypse grazed in our backyard, invisibly.
Our friends and neighbors - living in identical misery - were no richer than us. Driveways all over our veteran’s village were decorated with stationary cars. We were oblivious to our poverty - like the catfish at the college campus pond who thought ALL fish had whiskers and bottom fed on muck in the gloomy depths of the lake. Hey, this was America. Hard working catfish turned into trout. My part-time, minimum wage, 50 cents an hour job didn’t depress me. I knew education was the elevator to the penthouse where there’s a buffet every night. And I do not believe that 6 million Americans go to bed hungry.
