So I am on call and it’s Christmas Eve. So far it’s been pretty standard. Alot of drunk driving fatalities, alot of long suffering cancer patients going home and alot of sick children. I wasn’t even going to bitch but for two things 1) I am covering for someone who doesn’t even celebrate Christmas and 2) I just got a text from Mike Triforce reading “I’m working. R U?”

First, that bastard is working by choice. Every year he goes into the office on Christmas Eve and stays until late on Christmas day to get face time with the movers and shakers in the firm and to make up for 11.5 months of not doing shit. He then makes his family wait (he insists they not but he knows they will anyway) for three hours before eating Christmas dinner, until he arrives, looking extra frazzled and of course bearing extremely extravagant gifts. It also allows him to avoid bringing the Princess to his parent’s house because even he has the decency not to bring that filthy tramp into his parent’s home on one of the holiest days of the year.

So I call Benito looking to bitch and of course that makes the situation worse. First I mention working on Christmas Eve and immediately feel bad because Benito has no work or job. I try and recover saying it’s just the plight of the professional, but then I realize technically Benito is a professional. Then I hear his mother on the line saying she wished Benito had somewhere else to be Christmas Eve, or anytime for that matter, even if it wasn’t a job so she wouldn’t have to keep explaining that her 30 year-old balding son lives with her and has no job prospects despite having more education than most Professors. His mom got off the line and then I cursed Benito out for making me feel worse not better.

I called Alpha Man. At least he has a few part time jobs.  He got on my nerves responding to everything I said with some hippie-zen bullshit before turning the conversation to healthcare generally, Obama’s health plan and two seconds later the 2012 election. I noticed his voice sounded funny, and he replied it was cold in Fairmount Park where he set up his tent and his teeth were chattering. Once again I felt bad and proceeded to curse him out. It’s always awkward talking to An ex around the holidays anyway.

I called Icarus but he was so drunk I was shocked he’d even been able to answer his phone. He kept babbling about pills and lights and trees. To be honest I am a bit tired of what I consider to be an overdramatic display to convey that he is some kind of tortured literary soul. You’re a substitute teacher, a conveyer of worksheets, a temp for a shifty job that already gets no respect. Yes you have a Phd and the fulltime person has an Associates degree but at least when they are on a plane and their is a heart attack no one mistakes them for being useful wasting precious time. I cursed Icarus out.

Now I know you see a pattern developing and I will have you know I didn’t curse out KF Li or even leave a profanity filled message on his phone. Neither did I curse out Erin whose number I actually have in my possession.

I called well-adjusted Erin with high hopes. I could feel the pressure of my coming bitch session as the minutes of my precious break began to slip away.  But then tragedy. Erin’s aunt had just passed away and so I was forced to listen to tears shed over someone I had not pronounced…so sad. I gave her my condolences and said my break was up, which it almost was. But I was still mad.

I called Benito back and cursed him out for not telling me about Erin’s aunt. When I was finished he told me that it wasn’t her aunt, but her great aunt, as in her dead grandfather’s dead brother’s second wife also divorced whom she had never met and been dead for over a week. Oh hell no. I cursed Benito out for a third time to practice what I was going to say to Erin.

I called her from the hospital phone so as to thwart the caller ID. Guess who answered her phone all Christmas-happy sparkly? So I lace into her and get this, she goes she’d already taken 4 calls from friends who had to work Christmas/Christmas Eve and just couldn’t deal with another so she embellished a bit. Then she gets all preachy, there are worse things this and that and at least you have a job and family and don’t spend the holidays depressed etc.

I really would like to curse out the person who invented the phrase “it could be worse.” I was livid at the thought of Erin wallowing in her self-righteousness, a feeling I could have been savoring if I had never called her. It had crossed my mind to weigh the satisfaction of venting with the feeling of superiority that comes from helping people at Christmas time. To be honest I was probably trying to have my cake and eat it too, figuring more people would be like Benito and allow me to vent and stroke my ego.

But whatever. Erin won this round. I will wait until New Years when she is watching the ball and feeling lonely and be sure to make out with Simon in front of her. Unless I have to work then too. I have been here so long I have no idea what day it is.

 for one don’t give as many tips as I used to because I am tired of being the only one with entries under “questionable advice.” But ok, even my co-bloggers can’t object to a guy defending his girlfriend which is half the reason I am writing this.

Look, everything you do you do to get ahead. Your recreation is drinking and golf even if you detest both. You read WSJ regardless of your political leanings. And as far as dating goes you have two options: you date rich or you date HOT. Not real world hot. Sports Illustrated Maxim Hot. I chose the latter.

Dating rich is obvious particularly for those six figure student loan debtors among us. The price of dating rich (and probably less hot than you are able) is fidelity. Cheating on someone richer than you is scandalous. Cheating on someone poorer than you is a break-up/divorce.

Dating someone hot is harder than dating someone rich. Just like dating a rich person having something drop dead gorgeous on your arm opens doors. But these doors are opened for you with the intention of taking what is yours.  On top of that, the price of a relationship with someone who is hot is infidelity.  Most people who talk about monogamy don’t have wild ass thrown at them constantly. Both the Princess and I had turned down more sex halfway through high school than most above average people have in a lifetime.  Doesn’t mean I don’t get mad when she cheats. Particularly in our own bed – but that just means I have to up my own game.

I mean what if she wasn’t? Either 1) she would have become a saint which would then lead to questions about marriage and my own doings or much more likely 2) nobody else wants that and I wouldn’t be sleeping with HER but my past memory of a more attractive her.

Now my last point is important. Every other guy she’s ever slept with puts her on the pedestal of what she was like then, at that exact moment when they knew they’d finally gotten her. Therein lays the value of dating a bad girl past her prime.  I get a job from one of her old flames which he gives me to be closer to her and exert power over me. I put that job on my resume and try and get s better one before he manages to bone my girl. If I do I win, and if I don’t my consolation prize is a promotion or a lawsuit settlement…and call girls on the company card once I give my two weeks.

Student debt and the lack of economic power that goes with it plus the counter punch of un/underemployment makes it hard to date with purpose. But seriously 25% of relationships start online now. That means 1 in 4 people you meet is so desperate for a relationship that they are e-dating. You, debt-ridden marginally attractive you, can be part of a power couple. The hard part isn’t finding a temporary other half, it’s keeping up.

And no, don’t get married. Why? The reason half of relationships end in divorce is a marriage can only be successful with two winners and two losers. If one is a loser and one is a winner, the loser usually levels the playing field by taking half the winner’s stuff in the form of a divorce. Winners are also reluctant to shine as bright lest their loser spouse get antsy, by passing up killer lays or jobs that take them far from home. F that.

Simon is perfect. That’s not good enough. My student loans are manageable. That’s not good enough either. Sadly good enough can only be used to describe the work of my incompetent interns who I routinely flog verbally until I see their little spirits die behind their eyes.

Simon has to walk a fine line. He needs to have money, but not TOO much money lest I develop a lifestyle dependent on him. He needs to be forceful and strong like a man but I always have to have my way. He has to be able to fix things but can’t have that “blue collar” essence otherwise he is beneath me. His racial/ethnic background can’t be just like mine otherwise every black woman I know will get on me about snatching him up, but he also can’t be good old boy white because the chances of that being a turn-on are close to nil. Eastern European works. And of course he has to be model hot. I want big muscles and eight pack definition just like a man wants large breasts and a small waist. I feel the same way about my debt.

I can’t have mommy and daddy pay for school. Then I am some spoiled rich kid who owes her parents a marriage to someone they approve of, four grandchildren, at least 3 of them male, all of whom will be going to prep through med school on my dime.

I also can’t have Benito style debt. I am not separating Siamese twins then driving home in my used Kia to my hovel with three roommates, one of which is unemployed and the other two who have a higher take home paycheck than I do pending their promotion at Starbucks.

I need just enough debt that I can join in the conversations complaining about debt and how doctors aren’t paid enough but not enough debt that I can’t fantasize about my first navy blue Mercedes with a light beige leather interior, heated seats and that fancy accident preventing technology. I need to “make it” and feel “self-made.” Is that so wrong?

If that’s impossible I would settle to belong to one group or the other. I’ve written before about rich medical kids where doctoring has been the family business for generations. They have that fancy Mercedes now and talk about Aston Martins and whatnot. Then there are the poor medical students. They have whatever craigslist was offering when they realized that doctors on call can’t depend on public transportation. Me? I have a 2008 Avalon, simultaneously an old Toyota and a recent model of the flagship vehicle for the most successful car company in the world. What a need is something like a 20 year-old BMW with a story behind it. Then I would have a luxury car while simultaneously be driving a car older than Doogie Howser.  Maybe Simon will get one for me, or better yet find me one and take over some of my other bills so I can buy it myself.

Sigh. I am in line at Costco. Who can tell me three things wrong with that? 1) The Princess should be doing this kind of crap. 2) I shouldn’t have to use condoms with my live-in girlfriend of going on three years to not catch the latest strand of Herpes from a mediocre frat and 3) I shouldn’t have to be at Costco at all. Costco is expensive as hell and the Princess has a very expensive BREAKFAST and LUNCH meal plan only. I didn’t even know that was an option. Not wanting to go hungry, I occasionally make it to campus only to be greeted by asanine questions from her idiot friends “don’t you have a job? Shouldn’t you be at work? Aren’t you like 30?” I was so angry I almost didn’t get a third helping of eggs. I do have my pride though. I am not Benito. I refuse to bring Tupperware.

Oh but get THIS – the Princess isn’t even 100% daddy-funding this. The trifling, shiftless, spaghetti-legged trollup actually took out loans. She’s taking out loans to fuck fratboys while owing me 15 grand.

What does debt for a partner mean in a longterm relationship where you don’t plan to marry that person? Read on to find out.

I mean first there’s the obvious. In a relationship like mine where it’s understood that when you get a better offer you’re gone, if someone else starts borrowing tons of cash to be around good looking people in great shape you expand your search to include not just better offers but comparable ones. Also the cashflow in the household comes to a standstill. The student partner is naturally strapped for cash and the other partner doesn’t want to pay for joint goods like groceries , rent etc. because they know the chance of being paid back is virtually nil.

There are also new turns on the emotional roller coaster. Specifically there are two possibilities: most likely the student partner, racked by guilt and stress fails in every respect and comes crawling back more willing to take the abuse they most likely deserve until the non-student partner leaves for greener more successful pastures.

Now there is the outside chance that the student partner becomes very successful and earns a previously non-existent respect from the non-student partner. The student partner then is put in the tough situation of choosing to stay with their partner who supported them when they were garbage or move on to the untested fellow student-weighing the fact that the sex isn’t stale on one hand to the fact that the student has never been in the real world.

Sigh. But joke’s on the Princess. She will be walking to CVS for the morning after pill from now on. I’ve already got the Herpes cream. Also I am spending the last of the abortion fund here at Costco. In my book for a kid to really be mine and hence obligate me to kill it or raise it is more than just blood and DNA, it’s also a level of exclusivity, otherwise I am just a sucker who got unlucky.

Good luck on your midterms honey!

There’s nothing like creeping up on 30, barely out of school and making less than a janitor (they have unions) with mounds of debt, turning on the TV for your 15 minutes of television a week and seeing a teenage barely literate deadbeat high school dropout dad running for mayor. Anger. Then I listened a little closer and realized that this fool was being asked the same damn questions that his almost mother-in-law was asked in 2008. So basically this idiot was at the plate in a Major League Gsme a d he’s allowed to use a tee like in tee-ball (what you play before little league).  The fool answered “I don’t know” to about half the questions. And you know what? He still outperformed a woman who could have been President of the United States. Believe me, I know how to read McCain’s health chart.

So during another brief monthly break I mentor young girls at the Sadie Alexander School.  I asked her what she wanted to do/be when she grew up and she said she wanted to have Lil’ Wayne’s baby. I won’t tell you how old the child was because it will make you cry. I won’t tell you the race either (it’s not the one you think) because you won’t believe me. Now this girl isn’t dumb so I just assumed she was a slut, furthering my argument that sluts are born not made. But now I can see how a student could come to the following conclusion: why spend an additional 10+ years in school working hard to distinguish myself when the chance you have worked so hard for will be given to some idiot who had a child with a famous person? Why graduate high school when you can simply conceive a child with someone you plan to use for personal gain? The child will understand of course and if not they will be rich enough to afford whatever necessary therapy is required.

Look people it’s one thing to have an idiot President if he’s the first-born son and namesake of another President. But W at least graduated from high school.  And he had the equivalent of a royal bloodline connection. You know what Levi would be if he screwed the teenage daughter of a potential Queen back in the Middle Ages? Tortured to death.

Speaking of which Alaskans, the Palins included, love and brag about their guns and yet they let this ignorant, scraggly, lazy good-for-nothing back stabber waltz in, canoodle your daughter on the kitchen table and then eat dinner at that same table before the sweaty ass print has even had time to dry? If you didn’t shoot HIM who or what the hell ARE you going to shoot?

Oh that’s right. Guns are for moose and minorities that are minding their own business.

So Mike Triforce recently got lit up when he commented on a guest post by Sweet Hot Justice on ATL.  The post consisted of a girl complaining that she was too perfect to date. She made too much money and was too attractive and too much fun to be around. Here at Debtor’s Prison we think you are likely to have a slightly different problem when it comes to meeting relationship material.  Like most of our problems it is a compound quandry. Whereas endless debt can be broken down into borrowing too much for too little and little to no economic opportunity and water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen so too can stagnant dating be broken down into friend erosion and of course the constant shame of debt and perceived under achievement.

Because of Benito this blog has a tendency to treat debt and unemployment as two almost interchangeable phenomenons. This is not the case and nowhere is it more evident than dating. One of my favorite analogies is that unemployment is like race and debt is like sexual orientation (aka one is readily discernible while the other can be disguised if one so desires but both are often the cause of discrimination). An unemployed person simply cannot afford the wine/dine entertainment heavy initial phase of dating. A debtor can just put it on his or her credit card and pray.

I think there should be an all encompassing term or score that is derived from one’s employment or lack thereof, age and debt, but that is a topic for another post. The salient point here I think is that if you have trouble meeting people it’s because of friend erosion.

Face it, you’re out of school and there is nothing else quite like it for making friends. If you all don’t go to the same location afterwards you see your friends less. If your friends are somewhere where they are closer to other elements of their circle they become closer to those friends and drift farther away from you. So if you can’t afford to live in Center City like everyone else because of that loan payment or move back to the suburbs because you lost your job well…relationships change. Suddenly you are not tagging along to work happy hours or tapped to escort a friend’s significant other’s friend to a wedding or concert.

And this is the reason this ultimately may be a commentary post as opposed to advice…I have no idea what to do about this. All I can say is that anything you do to try and meet people to fill this gap be it yoga, joining an animal rights group or pretending to follow a sports team will ultimately end in failure.  The WORST thing you can do is join a faith community to meet people. This is stupid because most religions have guidelines about dating AND it’s a horribly disingenuous thing to do.

I would say as things stand now a relationship is most likely to occur in the following situations: 1) doing something you’re ALREADY passionate about 2) doing something that requires alot of sans internet downtime and 3) the internet.  If through debt and/or possible unemployment or underemployment you’ve managed to hold on to your position coaching your nephew’s swim team because you were an All-American in college there’s a chance you might meet a kid’s aunt/uncle/older sibling.  You’ll be in a familiar environment where you hold some authority and that’s your best chance to display the qualities that might attract a mate.  Your next best chance is a situation where you’re just around a certain group of people alot without internet.  Long drives and campaigns come to mind.  Hanging around a bar or convenience store doesn’t count, the proximity must be brought about for some kind of point like getting to a destination, be it physical or political.  Finally there is the internet.  Statistically this is a valid place to look for relationships and you’re not one to look down on anyone.

The worst part of all this is that it shatters another illusion. You thought if you did everything right you’d be ok even in a shitty economy. Well, you wouldn’t be here if you still believed that. You also thought your friendships were based on deep special bonds between unique individuals not simply chance and convenience.

We pray not to be brought to the test because the results are so often heartbreaking.

Being a mother is tough today.  Particularly if you are the mother of an inmate in debtor’s prison.  At a stage in life when you the parent should be looking forward to weddings and grandchildren, to eating holiday meals in the first homes of your children, and to finally receiving a little financial help, whether its to take a dream vacation or simply so you don’t have to worry about coming up short when the mortgage is due…you instead are finding yourself financially supporting your children.  And let’s be honest, you’re not “giving them a little help” like a down payment so they can afford a nicer home for their young family, you are providing them with all the essentials, shelter, food and transportation.  Just like when they were 10.

However here’s the difference.  Even a parent of a ten year-old who is doing rather poorly in school expect said child to be relatively self-sufficient by the time they are in their mid-twenties.  However if you are the parent of a child in their late twenties or early thirties with no job prospects and a crippling debt load you must deal with the uncertainty of whether that child will EVER be self-sufficient even if they have been academically successful all their lives. 

A running joke on this blog is the, for lack of a more eloquent phrase, the crap I take for living at home with my Mom.  Underneath that delightfully dysfunctional surface however there are deep, deep issues as I believe there are for all mothers.  Seeing your child’s life on pause, seeing them battle depression, low self-esteem and general sadness is heartbreaking for any parent.  It is particularly heartbreaking when that parent feels somewhat responsible. 

If you have a mother worth her salt she pushed you, challenged you and demanded the very best of you in everything you did, particularly with respect to your education.  Your mother then probably encouraged you to go to the better (and probably more expensive) of your college choices.  She encouraged you to go to graduate school.  And if that choice hasn’t worked out perfectly no doubt she feels somewhat to blame.

Look kids, here’s the deal.  You are not dead yet.  Not even close.  Nobody knows what will come of your degree over the course of your lifetime.  Remember, going to school was about more than the paycheck you would get when you came out.  It was about pride.  It was about confronting an elitist world, standing toe-to-toe with the best and saying “I am.” You did this, and nobody can take it away from you or from the woman who sent you.

Finally, I will leave you with this – the way you got into and through college was by bonding with your mother.  You guys were a team.  You fought through the financial aid red tape, the application process, and the endless issues of crazy roommates who somehow always got invited to dinner when your mom was in town.  Remember, going to college wasn’t just about you, it was about moving forward as a family.  That still ought to be your collective goal.  Moving forward as a family.  Some battles have been won, others have been lost, but the war rages on and the alliance is strong.

I caught the housing bug from an eighth year associate who thinks she is going to make partner. She thinks she is cute making comments about how she was being promoted at the expense of her ovaries. I thought such hackneyed cliches only existed in the nail polish smeared pages of a Lisa Scottoline novel. However I decided against it based oddly enough not on student debt but on what it might mean for my love life.

A dental hygienist friend of mine made a killing about two years ago buying stocks short. Being the responsible type she bought a house and immediately saw her love life shrivel and die until she started referring to her house as her parent’s house…parents who were mysteriously never there.

When a man is unemployed his ability to start or maintain a family is compromised.  What about when he has substantial student loans? Even taking a best case scenario, borrowing money to go to school and the loan payments eating into your first paychecks pushes out the timetable for buying that first house and accumulating equity and wealth. Even if that time is only 5 years, and your rent only $1000 a month that’s $60,000 added to your debt.

Now things could be much worse. You could be Benito building a house out of sticks in his mother’s backyard, desperately waiting for the dorms to reopen after a roof collapse due to record snowfall. This is a pitfall of the successful debtor…It doesn’t make sense to pay rent into your thirties.

Now I know what you’re thinking. I just said I wasn’t going to buy a house. But I am also in my early twenties. I don’t want to miss out on meeting my Simon because my house subconsciously reminds him of his depleted ability to provide despite his six figure job, shiny car, and flatscreen TV. Taking another page out of SG’s book… She may not have a house but she certainly is not paying rent. In the meantime I think I will buy some stocks and deduct recent repairs from my next rent check. It’s a start people.

Oops. I forgot. The Associate with the shriveled ovaries. She is getting laid off next month after she closes on her house. If I meet someone special maybe we will buy her house for cheap after the bank seizes it.

I shouldn’t have agreed to head up what is supposed to be a regular column but as the only member in a functional relationship (Mike you don’t count) I sort of got volunteered. Now as I am sure Mike will point out, I don’t even know what my boyfriend does…but there I would disagree. I know what he does. He pays bills and he pays when we go out. What I don’t know is his occupation. I can live with that. Here’s why.

Like it or not student loans affect every stage of a relationship. Girls think about marriage. It’s how we’re wired barring a traumatic experience. We know that if we have loans we are less attractive as marriage potential. The same is true for men. I will admit I think about how debt will effect a man’s ability to provide for a family. Notice how I didn’t say for a wife.  I seriously doubt I am alone here.

Since I am not trying to write an essay, let’s choose a single issue. Debt forces decisions to be made before one would otherwise have to. Case in point: if you do the math and factor in interest, taxes, and childcare/domestic duties a working spouse with a heavy debtload is about equal to a stay at home spouse with no debt, particularly in the first 10-15 years.  Therefore the choice one has is essentially a partner approximately the same age with the same ambitions and experiences or a likely younger partner willing to play a more behind the scenes roll. Simply put, do you want to come home late at night to a partner as frazzled, exhausted and beat-looking as you just because he or she is better able to relate to a conversation you are too tired to have OR do you want to come home to dinner and sex where all you have to do is sort of lie there? There is no time to get to know an individual because of the elephant in the room. You quickly decide which path you want and craft your affections accordingly. You end up either forcing yourself to love someone you don’t or you set up barriers preventing love from ever seeping through.

What this effectively creates are life stages with different partners. You stay with the person you dated in school until debts are paid down a little and each person wants to start a family but without sacrificing career. Neither one of you moves on career and one of you gets a job someplace else and you meet someone younger and there you have it.

I will concede that this model is harder for women than it is for men. But as society and technology change that gap is closing faster and faster. For what it’s worth I am not a fan of this model. I think it’s akin to leading a double life. I think it’s detrimental to the American family and I think it’s the reason society as a whole should care about this problem.