The day I got the housing court summons, I was heartbroken, terrified, and full of shame. I was supposed to be “good” at money. My parents taught my brother and me about the value of saving and living within your means and shared their own financial struggles with me. I was not supposed to screw up like this. Plus, they’d been very supportive about my move to New York City for school and my decision to pursue comedy as a career, so I didn’t want to disappoint them or cause them to worry. Plus, I knew that saying, “I’m about to be four months behind on rent,” to the parental units, who had their own finances to deal with, would’ve made this nightmare scenario unavoidably real. So I said nothing to them. Or anyone. I took the housing court notice and went inside my apartment.
Long story short, housing court is a soul-crushing, demoralizing cesspool containing good-intentioned, hardworking people who are, for one reason or another, struggling. Despite this cold reality, there were small breaks from the despair. Couples nervously and sweetly held hands, and little kids, oblivious to the severity of the situation, used the holding room like a jungle gym. But outside of that? Housing court makes you feel like a loser and an embarrassment, so how did I end up there in 2009?
I could blame it on circumstances being out of my control, like the 2008 recession or the fact that pursuing stand-up comedy mostly bled funds rather than adding to them, or I could even blame it on the rain—#MilliVanilliTruthForever*—but the truth is that the housing court clusterfuck was partially my fault.
In 2008, I was an executive assistant at an independent movie company and making decent money. Sixty thousand dollars, to be exact, but because it was not the career I wanted and I was working around the clock with some difficult personalities, I was weary. Like “just came home from a long travel day, took my bra off, and discovered that I’m out of LaCroix and all the supermarkets are closed” weary. But I got through having a crummy job like most of us do: listening to pump-up music; taking extra-long poop breaks in the bathroom to the point where the automatic light goes off and you comfort yourself by singing “One is the loneliest number”; and, finally, spending all day with a Katie Holmes barely there “can someone get me outta Scientology” smile plastered on my face. But the biggest way I coped was by telling myself the money was worth the misery and then buying dumb shit to distract from my soul-sucking job, which is, unfortunately, typically American. But for the most part, I was pretty good with money, I was paying off my credit cards in full, being prudent with my spending, etc. That is until October 2008, right in the middle of the nation’s recession, when the indie film company folded and I was given a severance package.
Fuck severance packages, y’all. Actually, severance packages are great and necessary so people can support themselves and/or their families when unforeseen hiccups happen. So what I should say is: Fuck being a twenty-four-year-old who was given a severance package in the ballpark of $15,000 and was arrogant enough to believe that even though the entire country was struggling to find work, I, somehow, was exempt from the recession, so I thought, Why be sensible with this influx of cash? I’m easily going to get another $60,000 job (and, yes, I’ll settle for $55,000 to $58,000 because I’m reasonable and generous), so this severance package is less a safety net to help me survive and more like when you get “bag fries” aka when the server at a fast-food restaurant puts too many French fries in the container, so some of them spill out at the bottom of the bag. In closing: You’re rich, bitch! So go ‘head and hella live that billionaire Jay Gatsby life with your bonus money.
LOL.com/BitchIsYouSerious. That line of reasoning was dumb for several reasons. One, when a recession hits an entire naysh, it doesn’t just duck, duck, goose its way around the middle class, picking a select few; everyone is goose, so everyone is chosen by the economy to be fucked. Second, I love how my willingness to take a $2,000-to-$5,000 pay decrease was a sign of generosity. That’d be like a dude saying, “Instead of seven blow jobs a week, I’ll settle for six and a half. The half being a handy where you can tug at my sauseege indifferently like a tired housewife tugging at the dinner-bell rope to call farmhands in for supper.” And finally, there’s no such thing as bonus money! There’s just money, and it’s either spent responsibly or irresponsibly. And lemme tell you, I was running-with-scissors irresponsible.
I put none of that severance package money toward the FORTY-SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS’ WORTH OF STUDENT LOAN DEBT I had. Instead, I acted like I was pulling a fast one on my student loans by deferring them with a “woe is me,” “BRB, me have no money” excuse. I didn’t even set aside some of the cash for rent (mine was $1,150 a month); I just proceeded to blow the money on concert tickets, West Elm furniture, trips to Macy’s and Banana Republic, both of which I opened store cards with, and full-price bus tickets to all my out-of-town comedy shows. Eventually, I started racking up debt on my other preexisting cards after maxing out the Macy’s and West Elm cards.
Lol. Wut?!?! How the hell did I max out the Macy’s card? The West Elm one I understand because they’ll have a 20-percent-off sale once a decade, yet the discount is immediately erased because of their astronomical shipping costs. Seriously, one time I ordered a coffee table and a couple of vases and was like, “Am I decorating my apartment, or did I unknowingly invest in a Silicon Valley start-up?” Point is, it’s easy to max out a card with Dub Elm, but Macy’s? Not so much. They practically give everything away because they have sales all. Da. Damn. Time. They’ll go, “Hey, y’all, it’s Flag Day. Do you want this Samsonite suitcase, a couple of memory foam pillows, and the entire Tommy Hilfiger department? Oh, you don’t have any coupons? No worries! Our employees will ring up thirty coupons so that you can buy everything for forty-eight dollars. Come back tomorrow!” You see, Macy’s seems like a great friend, but don’t be fooled. It’s the Blue Magic of stores, getting everyone hooked on deals to the point that you’re compulsively buying from them. And that’s how I ended up maxing out the Macy’s card. But the saddest part? I couldn’t even (and still can’t) remember half the garbage I charged on any of these cards. All I knew was I had no idea how I was going to erase the debt, and as you’ve probably guessed by now, I was having a hard time getting a new day job.
By spring of 2009, my severance package had completely dried up, I wasn’t earning enough from my meager unemployment checks or the low-paying temp jobs I took (packing boxes full of makeup to be shipped overseas for Fashion Week or manning the reception desk at ad agencies), and I performed on nonpaying stand-up shows around New York City. Before long, all the chickens from Sallie Mae, Macy’s, West Elm, and both my RadioShack and Bank of America credit cards began coming home to roost.
I started dodging phone calls. As I hunted for work during the day, humiliation repeatedly washed over me for believing that there would be no consequences for my poor choices. Once I got home, I paced my apartment like a conspiracy theorist until the wee hours of the morning, calculating how I would divvy up the upcoming month’s money in the hopes that I’d have maybe a couple of hundred dollars left over so I could buy groceries and pay for public transportation. I told absolutely no one, not my friends and especially not my family, about any of this. I acted as though everything was okay and my struggle was just the charming first act on an episode of E! True Hollywood Story.
Summer was just around the corner, and a recurring theme was emerging during interviews for full-time jobs: My $60,000 salary as an assistant was more than a lot of places were willing to pay, so I was routinely offered a little more than half that. Other employers told me that I was overqualified or questioned my passion for administrative-assistant work. Listen, I understand companies wanting employees to like their jobs because spending forty hours a week around peeps who behave as though they’re saddled with a perma-wedgie is undesirable. However, we can cut the shit at a certain point. No one has a passion for an entry-level admin position; they have a passion for not living in their parents’ basement like a bridge troll in the
children’s tale Three Billy Goats Gruff. Thankfully, after nine months of searching and being a couple of months behind on rent, I was offered an executive-assistant position at IAC, an internet company. Yaaaaas! But the salary was only $40,000, which was one-third less than my last full-time job. Naaaas aka nooooooo!!! #TheyCantAllBeGems.
Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to be employed again; however, I was screwed. A 33 percent pay cut meant that it would be nearly impossible to pay rent and basic living bills, make monthly student loan payments, and knock down my debt all the while continuing to hemorrhage money on a comedy career that was in its infancy. Hell, making $40,000 meant that being able to afford the apartment and cover the necessities (heat, electricity, internet, and public transpo) was going to be a Herculean task. And I failed. Every thirty days, I was strategically paying some bills over others or opting out of paying rent if I was short one month because I didn’t have enough to pay for that and keep the lights on and food in my fridge. And that’s how I ended up in housing court.
So, the morning of my appointment, I emailed my boss and told him I was coming in late due to an emergency water leak, which was not a far-fetched lie as he had been brought up to speed about all the deficiencies of my home. Then I put on my most professional-looking outfit and took a thirty-minute subway ride, alone, to the Brooklyn housing court.
As I sat watching the concerned couples, the playing children, and the smattering of folks who appeared to be single like myself, I became depressed. In that space, so acutely aware of the sound of the ticking hands on the clock as I waited for my number to be called, the potential for the outcome to not go in my favor was oppressive. Granted, seeing the sadness wash over everyone’s faces as they also contemplated their fates helped me feel a little less alone, but not much. I knew it was impossible for everyone there to leave with a happy ending. Still, I held a sliver of hope that my speech-and-debate years of high school were going to aid me in convincing a judge to give me time to come up with the $4,600 in back rent that I owed. So as I waited, my mind raced.
I wished I had someone I could have talked to about this, but even in that moment, with my cell phone in hand, I couldn’t bring myself to call anyone and let them know how the recession and my own idiotic spending had led me to this point. I feared being judged for my financial stupidity, and that my current situation would define me in the eyes of whomever I told, my parents included, who, by the way, are not judgy. Okay. That’s a lie. They are, but they’re like, black-people judgy. Meaning, it’s not personal; it’s just that their baseline emotion hovers somewhere between demanding I take a shower before dinner after leaving the house for 0.0000000068925 seconds because, as they say, I “smell like outside” and wrinkling their noses at seeing white girls put their dirty feet on dashboards. But ultimately, they have their kids’ backs about big-picture stuff. However, I was too afraid to say anything, and also I was pissed. Not at them but at money.
I blamed the existence of the severance package, which had seduced me into wanting a taste of how I thought some people lived. I was furious that I couldn’t make more money being an assistant. I was livid that comedy wasn’t paying much of anything. I was upset that money was seemingly punishing me for wanting to have a little bit of fun. Why did I have to be laid off when I finally had a good paying job? Money was an asshole, and this was all its fault. If I just had more of it, I wouldn’t be in the mess. Deep down, I knew that wasn’t true. If I had more of it, I’d be in an even bigger mess. But I needed to put the responsibility on something else, so I kept repeating this script in my head until it was my turn to save my own hide.
I may not be Johnnie Cochran “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit” good when arguing a case, but when my back is against the wall, I’m def Ally McBeal level, meaning I’ve used a unisex bathroom before. Nebulous lawyer skills aside, I, at least, was skilled enough to quickly weigh my options and figure out a plan of attack before I spoke. There’s the crying route, though judges are, for the most part, impartial, so I couldn’t risk dehydration, only to have his eyes glaze over the way mine do when my Kindle app sends me a long-ass notice outlining their updated terms and conditions. Deflecting and complaining about the things my landlord or super hadn’t done to make my apartment perfectly livable was an aggressive approach, but the “Oh yeah? Well, what about you?” technique tends to backfire once you’re out of grade school. So I tried honesty. I explained that I was trying to get back on my feet during the recession, but unemployment and student loan debt made for a bad combo, like Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy collaborating on the 1993 song “Whatzupwitu.”* A’ight, I didn’t say that last part, but I made it clear that I was in the process of overcoming this temporary setback by getting another day job and working nights as a comedian.
I don’t know if the judge simply took pity on me, or if he was having a good day and wanted to be generous, or if maybe, at one point in his life, he had been where I was standing, desperate to stay in a city that was backbreakingly expensive. But he and my landlord agreed to not kick me out of my apartment and gave me a couple of months to catch up on the nearly $5,000 that I owed.
And that’s exactly what I did. I depleted most of my 401(k) account from the indie movie job and lived lean and mean for the next two months to get current. That meant taking the subway home instead of taxis if I had a super late night out performing stand-up, eating two meals max a day (IAC provided breakfast and tons of snacks, so I only had to worry about making those sad lunches), and not spending money unless it was necessary. The two months passed, my rent debt was settled, so I bodysurfed into the sunset, right? Wrong.
I dealt with varying levels of stress-inducing financial debt for the next seven years, ranging from Sweet Baby Jesus, It’s Beans and Rice Again for the Second Week in a Row (paying the bare minimum on my student loans was still too much for my broke behind) to Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck (buying a plane ticket home for Christmas left me strapped for cash for weeks) to I’mma Have to Do My Heaux Stroll Down the Werther’s Original Aisle and Snag Me Old Sauseege to Be My Sugar Daddy (defaulting on one of my student loans and getting oh-so-close to creditors garnishing my wages). No matter how much I tried to stand on my own two feet financially, I got Dikembe Mutombo’d back down to the ground.
For instance, by 2013, I was freelance writing for a couple of pop culture blogs, including Glamour.com (earning about seventy-five to one hundred dollars a post), consistently making student loan payments (granted, they were so small that I was really only paying off the interest, but it was the effort that counted), and in good enough financial standing with my landlord that I was now threatening to not pay rent and take them to housing court if the super didn’t make repairs in a timely fashion. In short, I felt how Cardi B must feel whenever she stops and remembers she’s Cardi B. During this high, a friend asked me to write on her television pilot for VH1. There were just a couple of caveats: I had to quit my day job, and there was absolutely no guarantee that the show was going to be a series, which meant that after working on the pilot episode for three weeks, I would be relying solely on blogging to pay the bills unless the network gave us the green light. Damn.
On the one hand, I’d been dreaming every single day about quitting my day job and pursuing comedy full-time. On the other hand, my debt was a loud-ass rooster crowing and waking me up at dawn like, “Bitch better have my money!” I was like, “How did you get into my Rihanna Spotify playlist?” and then the rooster disappeared. The point is, I wasn’t sure if it was wise to leave IAC, but I had been waiting five years for a moment like this—#KellyClarkson—so I quit, took the pilot job, had the time of my life, and . . . early in 2009, the verdict was in: The show would not go to series. Ugh, but luckily there was some good news.
Glamour.com was digging my writing. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t rolling in the dough; I was just impressed that I had successfully negotiated my first raise by outlining how I go above and beyond
in all my posts (my posts would easily be two and three times the length of the average ones on their website). Besides, if you would’ve said to twelve-year-old TV-obsessed Pheebs, “In about fifteen years, you’ll have a job where you get to be home, pantless à la Jane Fonda in her eighties workout-video heyday, while watching your favorite TV shows and writing blog posts, including one about how Scandal’s President Fitz is a bowl of expired refried beans, which will be the Gettysburg Address of your career,” twelve-year-old Pheebs probably would’ve worried less if boys thought she was cute after getting her hair cut into Civil Rights bangs. This was a win! Then, a few months later, Glam-Glam had to revert back to my old wages, so to supplement my income, I shopped my wares around and was, at one point, writing for six or seven different websites with an income ranging from $50 to $150. Once again, I was barely making ends meet, but I was doing it.
This up-and-down pattern continued. I was hired to be a warm-up comic for a now-defunct late-night talk show, only to be fired a month later because they didn’t think I was a good fit. For the first time, I was an opener on tour for a semifamous comedian who offered to pay for my travel and accommodations when I mentioned how poor I was. Not gonna lie, I felt like Blac Chyna when Rob Kardashian paid for her plastic surgery and she showed off her new body on Instagram. I was like, “Ooooo, I gots me a man to take care of me!” As per usual, my joy was short-lived because a member of my team never explained that actually, I would have to pay for my hotel and travel first and then be reimbursed, and then she took the credit card of mine that she had on file (which, by the way, was the only one I had that wasn’t a mess) and proceeded to charge all the flight and hotels and maxed it out. And to make matters worse, it took her seven months to get the reimbursement from the comic’s manager. Then there was the time I got hired to write on a television show for Fuse at the end of 2014 (hell yes!) and it was canceled by spring of 2015 (hell no!). Y’all, my career was up and down like a premenopausal woman’s body temperature. But the absolute worst moment in my money life was August 2015.
Everything's Trash, But It's Okay Page 19
