I use peas and corn. I’m also part Irish and mostly British 😂

See they need to teach it better! lol thanks

The sequence of events is just as important... as one of the parent commenter suggested, drugs are used for an escape and it is entirely possible they are using it to cope with already being homeless.

>But drugs don't help with the budget

I agree. But $1200 (the amount they hypothetically made) tax free usually doesn't cover rent and food in a lot of Maine. So they use a portion of it to escape their reality.

Add 117 from Hiram to Denmark on that run and pop out on 302 in bridgton for a good little loop.

^this guy understands the definition of the word "factor"

Salute

It will. It's already started.

Probably be worth his while to get to a point where he can piss clean and apply at Huhtamaki, it’s right up the road from wherever he’s at now

~$20/hr with full benefits if you can fog up a mirror and virtually unlimited OT and you can jump to $23-25/hr by showing up consistently and maintaining your ability to fog up a mirror

It’s hot as balls in the summer and shift work blows but it sure as fuck beats $300 a week

We should now start a debate on: American Chop Suey

It would be really great if America had compassion for poor people.

Respectfully I’d like to know where $300 a week "is more than enough to afford rent"? Even making double that amount weekly it's very difficult to afford a decent place to live while also trying to pay for the essentials like food, utilities ect. A lot of folks turn to substances to ease the stress of just surviving. So many use alcohol multiple times a week as well to unwind and cope with surviving the grind of life. We tend to look down more on people turning to drugs rather than alcohol but we all know if alcohol was illegal there would be many people still using it and having to endure risking legal consequences, homelessness to obtain a drink much like people face when using illegal drugs. As a community we need to stop judging and assuming things about each other and turn that energy towards being angry at our government. If people are working a full time job but can't even afford to exist then there is a major problem with the system that the wealthy ruling class created to benefit themselves. How many people grow up in poverty and are able to escape it? The system is designed to keep you poor and in servitude to those who are wealthy. Of course there are people who can change the trajectory of their life after growing up in poverty but we all know how difficult this is. Most people turning to illegal substances daily to cope aren't doing it because it's fun they are doing it to escape an unjust and unfair system. Back in the 40s/50s a guy could work as a janitor and own a nice home and support a family of four on their own. Today a lot of people work multiple jobs and still will never own a house. We all need to be angry at the people who can fix this problem but chose not to because it doesn't benefit their interests rather than judging disenfranchised individuals.

Addiction isn't the addict's fault, it is an illness he has little control over.

>Where are you living that $300/week is enough to rent something, anything?

Rent with roommates....

Yea it won't get you your own one bedroom apartment. But it might get you a room somewhere.

Could end homelessness with the stroke of a pen in this country.... but instead we would rather do things like shovel $100+ billion to Ukraine for proxy wars.

And everyone will say how they wish it could be different.... before going and voting for the same corrupt duopoly that will do everything in their power to make sure it never changes.

I wonder if I'm going to live long enough to see real change in this country. But at 40 years old... I don't think so.

This is the key that people seem to miss: If you are struggling in Maine, you need to move away from Maine.

But if he made that little and WASN'T a drug addict, he'd be a much better prospect as a roommate.

I'm so glad that xperimentalZa mentioned "A Way with Words," a radio show/podcast which I am a co-host of! This "you're in trouble" expression has been a longstanding mystery. Our listeners brought it to us. No reference work or language researcher seems to have looked into it.

The fact that so many of you know it from Maine and nearby states upsets the most current theory that we have! Up until now, all of the reports that we have had from listeners occurred in mountain, southwest, western plains states: New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

Our current hypothesis was that it might be a form of Spanish "a ver" which has a number of colloquial meanings in Spanish that include "we'll see" or "we'll find out," and we were guessing that the meaning, when used in a classroom was, "you're gonna find out what kind of trouble you're in." More specifially, "¡Uuuu, vas a ver!" meaning, "Oooooh! You're gonna pay the consequences!"

This hypothesis was plausible because from New Mexico and Arizona northward through the mountain states into Colorado is a history of some of the longest Spanish-speaking traditions in North America, representing, in part, a dialect that isn’t spoken anywhere else, and tied directly into the settlement of the land before both Mexico and the US became countries. There is still a great deal of labor moving between those states and the Spanish-speaking heritage is a part of that.

Listeners who are familiar with this expression have rendered it phonetically a variety of ways: a ver, ah vah, ah ver, ah vers, ahhh ver, uh ver, uh vers, um bers, um ver, umber, umbers, umm brr, umm ver, umm verr, ummbrr.

The V and B are interchangeable in most dialects of Spanish, and are easily mistaken for each other by Anglophones.

HOWEVER. If this classroom "you're gonna get it" sound is also being used in Maine and nearby, that hypothesis is null and void. Since we last talked about this on the show in December (https://www.waywordradio.org/a-ver-umm-ver-trouble-at-school/), we also heard from someone who remembers using it as a child in Virginia (and they have a Mennonite background — some connection to the German mentioned elsewhere in tis discussion?).

Besides the link above, here's another place we talked about the expression on the radio show/podcast: https://www.waywordradio.org/umbers/

I welcome all field reports about it from Mainers and others!

there actually is still a large homeless problem but yeah

Maine is in an ideal location to weather climate change. We will likely lose winter as we know it but life should be possible here. We should be planning ahead for this happening.

The economy is going to outpace bad habits, it won’t stand still for narcotics, booze, smokes, gambling, porno. We have to make concessions for retirements, addicts need to make concessions for imminent poverty.

Eventually, yes.

a factor vs. sole factor. Meth is extremely addictive. Meth causes rapid decline in both physical and mental health. Addiction in general causes a multitude of problems, and is indeed why he lost his presumably higher paying utilities job. You can point to the wages all you want but being an addict sure as shit isn't a non-factor in this guy's diminished quality of life.

Justify what? If you’re an addict, get your shit together. My heart bleeds for those with a shred of integrity. Junkies can fuck off.

Might want to be concerned about real life. It's not a good look, but cling to it on a lame ass attempt to justify it.

But we're not talking about any of that. The first comment was specifically saying the money is going to drugs and that's why he's homeless. If he stopped using drugs, he could afford an apartment. I'm specifically talking about funds, not mental health or well being. Financially speaking, drugs are not a problem in the same way "millennials eating avocado toast is what's stopping them from buying homes" is not the problem.

Drugs as a whole, absolutely a problem we need to solve. But this person quitting drugs won't fix their homelessness problem.

No lamb for you, then!