My 500 word essay, a little late. Better late than never though, right?

500 Word My Low Wage Life
Personally, I have never had to experience the true low wage life. My family has always had enough to at least get by. However, of the people I know, I was the least affluent. I was the poor kid. I still am, actually. While as I said, we never struggled to get food on the table or keep clothes on our backs or a roof over our heads, there have been those times when an unexpected bill would pop up and my family would be a little worried on what we would do. How would we pay the mortgage, how would we buy food, how we would find money to fix the car, and find time to take off work. And I think moments like those, plus how in general I felt treated by others and how I felt around others, put me closer than a lot of people to the low wage life (or at least most of the people in these two sections of class). You see, I’m one of those rare breed at SCU who would not be able to go here without a scholarship: hence, the Army ROTC scholarship I received. If it weren’t for that scholarship, I’d be instate at home at CU-Boulder right about now. I was the kid in high school who had no car, who got nothing special for his 16th or 18th birthday, who had to take the bus through his senior year. It’s weird, but I would have much rather gone to a poorer school, because at least there I would have fit in with people better. But kids driving around at my school in BMW’s, Lexus’s, Escalades, Hummers, and the like, just made me feel even worse about being poor. It’s a strange feeling, realizing your family has no money to spare. I didn’t realize it until I was maybe 14 or 15. Until then I would lie about how much money my family made, saying we made more than we really did. I used to always tell people we didn’t have cable TV because my parents didn’t want me to watch TV so much. The truth hurts, I’ll tell you right now. Cable TV is an expense that we couldn’t afford even if we wanted to. High speed internet was a big, big stretch back in 8th grade when we got it. My dad has good weeks and bad weeks. Good weeks are when he gets paid, which means he can spend more on food at Costco, bad weeks are when he can’t spend as much. I don’t bother going with him on bad weeks anymore. I honestly can’t take it anymore. Asking if I can get something and having him say “wait till next week.” I’m not asking for a new TV or a video game or some shit. I’m talking about food products. Food products my dad simply can’t afford that week. So there it is. There’s my low wage life experience. Maybe it’s not as low wage as we’re shooting for, but hey, it’s my life and I figure a close first hand account is better than a crappy third person one. Besides, back at home, I’m the poorest kid I know anyway. Who am I gonna talk to?