Make Me Pay

I see the way students here live, how they have to pay for everything themselves. They have a job, sometimes two, sometimes three, and they STILL find time to study and get drunk on weekends. It's a hard life, It is the American Life. They make you pay if you forget your swipe card to get in, they make you pay $5 for mini box of crackers, they make you pay hundreds of dollars for books, student health insurance, fees, taxes, classes, I heard they were gonna start charging us the next time we breathe.

I can't help but make the constant comparison between the drastic life Americans live and how I grew up. Back home, I never paid. I can't really say I knew what it felt like before I moved here. Healthcare and anything related to it is free. Groceries are cheap, gas is as expensive as water, and you could politely flirt your way out of getting a speeding ticket, assuming you're ever stopped in your lifetime. Moving here, western movies did not prepare me for the mid-western realities of life here. They certainly did not prepare me to do my own laundry. I mean, how do you even operate the machine? And you have to pay for every load? That's... crazy. But then, you actually have to pay extra if you want to dry your clothes, as if the first amount was not enough! This is why people here really care about the money they make, everything is costly, and it is coming out of your wallet.