To Pawn or to Perish

pstrongLow income people across California are forced to pawn off their belongings just to pay for their inflated PGE bills/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/371/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Linda Washington /p pI have lived through alot.. the death of my first son - teen pregnancy of my daughter -a job doing manual labor for 32 years job and the endless struggle to get through every day with the severe arthritis that I have had for the last six years and yet nothing has made me feel quite as defeated as I did the other day....It all started at about 6 am when I got up for work -the sun seemed to light up my tiny kitchen more than usual- but it wasn’t a bright cheery light that made me feel like my usual hopeful self - it was just a glare... an odd glare that made every thing look dull and disordered - but perhaps it was me - a dull and disordered me who didn’t want to have to pick one of several favorite belongings to take to the pawn shop on that day - so I could get enough money to pay my PG E bill - but that was another story - /p pYou see, two months ago when this whole mess started with the alleged “energy crisis” I began to get a sinking feeling in my stomach because I knew something was seroiously wrong- and yet almost everything I read about the “crisis” confused me more - so I stopped trying to figure it out and ended up just feeling angry- angry that the big money corporations were duping me so blatantly and that I was truly unable to do anything about it- I kept up with some of the activism launched by Global Exchange but I wasn’t much of an activist and besides, after struggling to get through each day - I barely had time to sleep - much-less, be “pro-active” so on I went, angry and impotent.Then I got my bill.. $346.00 - this was a 120 percent increase - this was more than I spent on food, clothing and medication- this was more than I had.to my name......../p pI began to look around my room - I prayed, I wept.. I prayed again... I had always paid my bills..mostly on time or if I couldn’t - I would hold off on that purchase or vow to stop buying anymore furniture...or....- well, this was different- I could never stop being in this form of debt- and even worse- I could never see being able to pay these bills- That’ s when I started to look around my little apartment for something to sell- something to hand over to the omnipresent jaws of the neighborhood loan shark, pawn shop - call it what you like- it meant one thing- I would never see one or more of my valuables ever again- /p p“$85.00”, he spit out the words without as much as a glance up from his papers. /p p“You’ve got to be kidding that’s worth at least $200.00- I said, pointing a shaking finger at my VCR. I had chosen the CD player and the VCR, this meant no more movies from the Video store- this meant no more soft music to soothe me to sleep - and yet he didn’t look up../p p“ I said 85.00 - that’s all I can give you lady- take it or leave it” He was shaking his head in unison with his words./p p“OK” I said, knowing that I would have to take the only piece of jewelry I owned back to the store. If I was lucky, it might make the rest of the bill.../p pI PNN contributor Linda Washington who lives and works in Oakland, Ca. wrote this with co-editor, Lisa Gray-Garcia, as part of POOR’s writer facilitation project which aims to give voice to low and no income voices locally and globally/ibr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p