Nickel and Dimed

I was sure my plans for Saturday evening had been busted as soon as I woke from an unexpected nap. I had been reading and I fell asleep with a book in my lap. The clock said 6:15 p.m. and I was to pick up a friend in a half hour.

I wasn't dressed.

Suddenly I realized that I never called the box office at Hollins University to reserve seats for the play we were to see. What if it was sold out?

Panicked, I called to check. An answering machine picked up. I left a breathless message about wanting to reserve two seats for the evening.

Then I hurried to dress.

When I picked up my friend, I confessed I wasn't sure we'd have seats. "That's okay, we'll just go get something to drink (as in a soda, since neither of us drink alcohol)," she said.

Fortunately, there were plenty of seats available and my worries were for naught.

We went to see Nickel and Dimed, by Joan Holden.

The play is based on the book Nickel and Dimed, on (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich.

I have not read the book.

The play emphasized how difficult it is to get by on minimum wage or near minimum wage. Heck, let's face it, unless you're making at least $40,000 a year, it's hard to get by in this country, and not everybody can make $40,000 a year because we don't pay people what they're worth. There are firefighters and policemen on food stamps, for pities sake.

And the costs are skyrocketing, what with increases in gas, electricity, and food. Basic living items. When did a gallon of milk climb to $4.80? I don't buy it often and that's what the last gallon cost.

The play was about Ehrenreich's undercover work for the book. She went to Florida, where she found a job as a waitress. She could not make ends meet there without taking on a second job as a maid in a hotel, and even then she could barely pay the bills. Not to mention do anything else, because she was worn to a frazzle from working 12 hour days, every day.

Her coworkers had hard lives, too, and they are all portrayed through the play. We see how difficult it is to bring up children or be pregnant without health care because you can't afford it.

In Maine, Ehrenreich worked as a house cleaner for a national franchise firm, and as a dietary aid in a nursing home. She discovered that non-corporations are better to work for than corporations.

In Minnesota, she worked for "Mall Mart." The sleaze factor of this retail corporation simply oozed from the stage.

The actress who portrayed Ehrenreich, Susie Young, did an outstanding job. I was very impressed with her performance.

The play must have made some in the audience quite uncomfortable - it was family weekend at the university and many of the girls at Hollins are, let's face it, from the upper class. Heck, it made me a little uncomfortable and I am nowhere near the upper class.

But I am not in that working class living paycheck to paycheck, and for that I am grateful.

The play offered no alternatives, no solutions. I am not sure what those solutions are. Fair wages, for sure, but that becomes a catch 22. If the price of eating out becomes cost prohibitive, then the waitresses are out of jobs completely, after all. Most of the solutions that I can think of fall under the "socialism" scream, and we know how terrible many people think that is.

I will read this book now. I should have read it sooner.