you can't take the fancy out.

The roof leaked. The window sill was rotting. The floor creaked and caved around the 60 year old heater in the floor. The grass had grown 2 feet tall because I couldn’t afford to put gas into the mower. I sat on my couch, eating my meal du jour, a hot dog and mayonnaise, while I sipped hot water from a Hutschenreuther teacup (Richelieu), signed and numbered “33.” 

Hutschenreuther Richelieu 

Hot dog and Mayonnaise

do these really go together?




















Yes, yes, it is true. Fancy moved out of her parents’ house and into a place of her own, carting only her Hutschenreuther and an old silver spoon she got from her mother. It’s a well known fact that the women in my family can pick out the most expensive thing in the room because it’s the first thing to which we’re drawn. We’re fancy girls. We want it all. And really, let’s be reasonable, what’s the point in having cake if you can’t eat it too? 

And yet, amid all of the frill, there’s the survivor, the warrior, the girl who will stop at nothing for freedom and a love to call her own. Though she may have to trudge through the rain, sell her dresses to buy groceries, hold the soles [souls] of her shoes together with duct tape, and wear mud on her shirts because she can’t afford detergent, she will survive. She will make due. She will rise above and conquer. And she’ll look good doing it. 

This, my friends, is why I present you with the fancy girl’s guide to being poor. Because you can take the girl out of the fancy, but you can’t take the fancy out of the girl.