Box Of Soap

For those of you who don’t have Facebook accounts, I will briefly explain the Status phenomenon. When you log-in to FB, you are prompted with a box that asks: “What are you thinking?” What you write in that box (whether it’s once a month, once a day or SEVERAL times a day) is your Status. Status updates range from telling quick, funny stories about your kid, to bitching about traffic, to quoting Jersey Shore episodes. But lately, Facebook statuses (stati?) have become dares.

“I am a Christian and love the Lord. If YOU love God, cut and paste this as your status. A brazillion of you won’t be brave enough to post this.”
“It’s ‘I Love My Sister Week’. If you love YOUR sister, cut and paste this as your status.”
“If you like the song “Pants on the Ground”, copy and paste this as your status.”

These things don’t bother me. I personally never seem to copy and paste them. I AM a Christian and I DO love my sister, but I’m just not going to do it today. (BTW – Pants on the Ground is on my nerves.) But the point is… these posts don’t bother me at all.
The latest Facebook dare is along these lines:
“Millions of Americans are dying because of our jacked up healthcare system. We are living in a country with all these TERRIBLE hardships. Yet we’re sending money to Haiti. I’m sick of people helping Haiti - - we need to help our own!!!! If you’re brave, copy and paste this as your status.”

Guess what. This is bothering me.

I understand that America has many hardships, especially with the economic crisis that we’re in. Anyone who thinks we are OUT of this economic crisis, I’m sad to say that I sincerely disagree. I feel it everyday at work- and I work at a big, beautiful, very well funded hospital. I imagine I am hit the LEAST hard right now, yet I am reminded everyday that we aren’t where we were 4 years ago. I KNOW that our healthcare system is far less than ideal. I think a change is warranted…I just don’t agree with Obama’s plan for that change (I won’t get started on that).
On and on and on – I know America has a lot of problems. MY problem is that I feel we only have Americans to blame for these problems.

You don’t like Obama and wake up angry at the White House? Guess what. WE elected him. Love Obama and want to blame it all on Bush (or –I’m sorry – “previous administrations”)? Guess what. We elected him, too.
Don’t like our healthcare system? I’m sorry. I’m a tad jaded on this subject. Not everyone abuses the system. So. Many. People. abuse the system.
I’m sick of telling parents that their babies have hearing loss and have to wear hearing aids their entire lives and then, as the parents cry into each other’s shoulders, I glance through their paperwork and cross my fingers that they have Medicaid or Chip. You see, if they DO, their child will get hearing aids for free. If they DON’T, if they have Aetna or United Healthcare or something of the sort, I have to hand them tissue and cry a little with them. Now we have to talk about the fact that you need to come up with about $5,000 – and FAST - in order for me to help your child hear.
I’m sick of fitting these “free” hearing aids on my Medicaid babies and then staring at Mom as she stares at me in disbelief that I have just told her she is responsible for the $4.95 pack of batteries the hearing aids will need each month. She is so furious, that she pulls her iPhone out of her Louis Vuitton and calls her friend to complain as I finish the fitting.
Ugghhh – I realize when I’m rambling. I’ll get to the point.
What has happened in Haiti is an absolute tragedy. It is unimaginable and utterly horrifying. I would like to use every disgusting adjective the thesaurus holds, but I don’t have a thesaurus handy. No matter that this was a low-economic country with many problems of its own; they did not bring on this disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people are DEAD. People were walking the streets, holding their dead children, because there was nowhere to take them and they couldn’t just leave them on the street. Do you understand that? Do you get it?
Don’t tell me to stop caring about Haiti and to start helping Americans. Stop it.

I am not a cynical person (I love you, Conan) and I realize this is a cynical post. I am very aware that many of you, my dearest friends and family whose opinions I honor and respect, will disagree with me and be annoyed by this. Sorry. I just had to vent my feelings before I went apeshit on Facebook and posted regretful words to my two hundred and some odd “friends” that don’t love me like you all do.