Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me

Word on the street is that times is tough. All over, not just for me. And so I say, “Poor is the new rich.” If we were all once consumers consumed with buying more, now we are all a bit dazed, all a bit more compassionate and not so smug about thinking we were the ones to be ‘smart’ with our money.

Used to be that people thought that people were poor because they weren’t smart enough or were lazy. Now people who work hard are finding that maybe that was never true.

When I parked off street at a meter yesterday, in downtown Minneapolis to take my daughter to her voice lesson at MacPhail Center; I parked behind a Mercedes Benz coupe, brand new, shiny paint. It had vanity plates that said “I EARND IT.” I of course, was curious, curious to hear more of this story.

This Mercedes Benz story and how the person driving it earned it. Earning is a word that carries lots of ideas with it. Merit, judgement, sometimes work, sometimes it is a negative word, like earning a bad reputation. So, what was this person’s story? They obviously really wanted the whole city to know that they had this luxury item, but with a disclaimer, they ‘earnd it.’

I was intrigued, because, hey I’d like to earn a Mercedes Benz too! “How did you earn it?” I’d like to ask. "Can I work there? Can I do what you do so that I can drive that beautiful piece of machinery?" I like cars. For a while I felt silly about it, frivolous, and a bit unfeminine. Cars are cool. A woman can dream, can’t she? In this new economy, dreams might be the next best thing to eating out and not having to pay.