This is why we can't have nice things, and I'm tired of it

[faithinthesound]

Full disclosure: I don't actually think I'm being unreasonable. I know I'm angry and that is coloring some of my words and actions and responses, but I don't think I'm all that wrong. I'm here for a vent and some commiseration, really.

I've got this joke I make all the time when something goes wrong, like something gets knocked over or falls on the floor. I laugh and I say "and that is why we can't have nice things". But I'm sitting here today seething at just about everyone I've encountered today, because the truth is, we CAN'T have nice things. And I am so sick and tired of people who are the reason why.

Like, we can't have a nice sit out on the back porch because the neighbors are blasting rap.

Like, the timetable machine thing at this bus stop has been broken for months and will never be fixed because the second it's fixed, someone will be along to smash it up again.

Like, I can't get anywhere on time today because people want to stand and argue with the bus driver over whether or not they have to pay (spoiler: yes you bloody well do).

Like, I'm not particularly enjoying my dinner because the woman who served me at the fast food restaurant spoke to me like I am a moron (I'm not), and it has vexed me.

Like, we can't have threads like we used to like Sharon and the wasp, because there's a contingent of Reasons We Can't Have Nice Things who will be along before we're ten posts in, troll hunting and pooh-poohing and calling shenanigans, instead of getting into the spirit of the thing.

What about you guys? Want to share your "I can't have [nice thing] because [reason]"? I know I'm being very negative and ranty but sometimes it's nice just to be able to unload.

Who knows, RWCHNT (Reason We Can't Have Nice Things) might even catch on as a new MN acronym lol.

waxon - you sound increasingly like Norman Tebbit tbh - the poor should just get bikjes hey?

@MrsKoala

I also live in Kent commuter belt and love it. Although DMIL lives in a different part of Kent and when admiring my door wreath at Christmas said "I could never put up one of those, it would be nicked in minute." I went to see her on New Year's Day and sure enough no-one had one. They're on practically every house on our street.

I think that's really sad!

I dunno, for every person I feel sorry for who is genuinely struggling, there is another I come across who is ripping the piss. DH drives an ambulance. he had one bloke who he went to collect to take to a hospital appointment who demanded that he be picked up later as he didn't want to sit about. He then boasted about his £450+ a week he was getting in benefits. He hasn't worked due to a bad back for many many years. He wants a taxi service really, he doesn't need to be taken by ambulance but obviously wants free transport. He hobbles out the ambulance but doesn't bother with the hobbling when he is out and about in the street when DH picks up from a neighbouring house. DHs take home is much less than patient is getting in benefits. It makes you wonder really. I'd be perfectly happy to pay more taxes to help people but at same time, DH is paying tax to support someone who is then getting more than he earns. If I wasn't earning then we would be living of an income less than he is.

The other day i was sat at the back of a bus. The man next to me had his feet up on the seat opposite. Just before he got off he dragged his muddy trainers up and down the seat to make sure he left as much mud as possible on the seat. Just pure nastiness.

a great sense of community and self-worth

self-worth tends to go out the window when you cant afford to wash your clothes, buy food or heat your house and these days asking a neighbour to help with some milk, sugar or to do a load of washing because you need X and its not pay day for another few days is more likely to get you a 'fuck off' than anything else.

also the shame. There is, here in the UK at least, inherent shame in being dirt poor and on benefits so asking for help would be the absolute last resort. Shame erodes your self worth.

waxon - really should be allowed to fine people like that for wasting public time and resources or tell them to jog on.

Why cant the police deal effectively with anti social behavior? - its not budget that constrains them but people's attitudes preventing them from upsetting the poor dears

You do know that there have been massive and swingeing cuts in police budgets since May became Home Secretary and PM don't you? In fact Since Theresa May became home secretary in 2010 the number of police officers has fallen by 21,500.

Are you telling me that this hasn't affected their ability to respond @Eve?

These austerity cuts affect all of us, - policing, education etc etc etc

TIWWCHNT... Just moved to a nice area after living near an estate where my DP never used the local shop due to chavs. Lived here 5 weeks and he's been enjoying using the local shop until last week a kid chased after him calling him a paedo because DP touched his arm while saying "excuse me" because he was in the way of the door. Now he won't go again and has to travel to the supermarket as he doesn't want to risk being called a paedo. Little shit.

In our old house I finally decided to start doing something with the garden after not bothering for 6 years due to it being next to said estate and not private. Put out a hanging basket of flowers, it was gone in two hours. Thankfully hadn't spent much at that point so hadn't wasted money on more valuable things like a shed etc.

We always buy old used cars as where we used to live they kept being written off by drunk drivers while they were parked.

People are shit. (well, not all! )

You see I just don't see the connection between "my life is shit, I can't pay my bills" to "fuck it, I might as well crap in this lift/set fire to this bus shelter/rob this granny". For some people, the link may be "this society is nothing to do with me, no matter how hard I work, I will never be able to have a share in it"

I escaped ... by studying and getting to grammar school (Tory policy) and benefitted from a full grant when I got to university (?Labour policy) and now DH and I are probably in the top 5% in terms of household income. This is what has changed - social mobility is so much less now. Not because of fewer grammar schools (which had only a marginal effect) but because there are fewer middle class jobs, "entry level" jobs no longer have a career structure.

The thread seems to have moved on from its original question of RWCHNT, so at the risk of being backward, can I volunteer mine?

My DSS, whom I adore in every other way, won’t stop walking along the back of the sofa, and the DH sits on it in a way that folds it down even more, so the sofa is ruined, but it isn’t worth getting a new one, as they’ll both keep doing it!!!

AIBU to want to chop DSS legs off, and make DH sit on the floor?

I can’t have nice things because my kids break every fucking thing, or draw on it, or cut stuff on it (brand new kitchen table, cutting play doh with a steak knife).

I can’t have a nice walk because it’s blowing a gale

I can’t make plans because my exh is a knob and will only have the kids when it’s convemoent to him

The scroungers issue is a bit of a red herring, I think. From what I've read, certainly under Cameron (not sure how much worse things have got under May) there was more money kicking around in unclaimed benefits which people were entitled to but didn't claim because the process was too complex, than there was money being fraudulently claimed.

Also, again there is the rich person's equivalent (just like my rugger buggers kicking wing mirrors off cars). Any tax system with the flexibility to allow small businesses to have temporary cash-flow problems without going under immediately when a few months could maybe have enabled them to sort the issue out also has loopholes that people can exploit. Hence perfectly legal but immoral tax avoidance schemes (Paradise Papers, anyone?)

In fact, it's a mathematical theorem that as soon as you impose a binary yes/no threshold onto a continuous quantity like income (get benefits below this level, hike in tax rate above this level), you inevitably created situations where the system can be "gamed". (I went to a very interesting seminar on this a few years back).

The issue then becomes two-fold. First, what's your moral stance? Does punishing the few people gaming the system outweigh the benefits of having a safety net for the majority of people who genuinely need it, or do you put the safety net ahead of worries that some people are taking the piss? Second, on a practical level, once you spot a loophole, how quickly can you plug it, without disadvantaging the majority too much?

(Actually, there's a third issue: at what point does it become less cost effective to police the system? Civil service expenses would be an example. My first job, we got a subsistence allowance for travel, which some people abused by staying with friends and claiming as if they'd stayed in a hotel, but which the majority used fairly. This was replaced by actuals, where everything was receipted, but came with an admin cost. Thanks to Daily Mail stories about first class travel and posh hotels, this in turn got replaced by a system which outsourced to third party firms who now use insanely expensive hotels, travel options, and cream off immense profits. The end result probably costs the tax payer much more than the original subsistence system).

I cant have nice things as my husband will break them trying to fix something else.

I cant have nice things because i have two cats.

The underclass still existed and was highlighted by Tony Blair's labour Govt, who threw a lot of words and policy at fixing it. Which of course didn't work. Using the rough indicator of begging on the streets, the number of beggars on my route through the city centre was steadily decreasing until 2010 and has increased noticeably since then.

Why cant the police deal effectively with anti social behavior? - its not budget that constrains them Our local police station closed. Then the more distant station we were supposed to use instead itself closed. Our local police were replaced by police community support officers. Now they've all been removed. There are no longer sufficient police resources for anti-social behaviour. Predictably local Facebook pages are full of people wanting to set up vigilante groups "and sort out these scum for once and for all"

I don’t think it’s about class or where you live, I live in HA house on a road which is all HA houses, we have no issues but I know people who live in areas where everyone owns their property and they have all sorts of problems. I love where I live, sure there are probably better places but there’s a lot worse so I don’t feel the need to moan.

I have 2 dc’s, both have ASD, one destroys everything, I can’t have nice things, I can’t have make up or nice pretty ornaments, I spend most of my life cleaning up after them but I look on the plus side, my house is minimalistic, I have no ornaments to dust and no clutter . I have pets, they scratch things, my house smells of dog and my leather sofa has claw marks on it but I love my cat and my dog and they bring me joy which is worth more than having nice things.

The number of police has been cut. This has been well publicised.

Pricklyball has it. These people exist everywhere but well off people can afford to get on the phone and get a repair person out PRONTO! They possible appear and sound more well presented and articulate so can bring pressure to bear on the powers in that be, in demanding repairs and resources. I’m not well off. If someone kicked the wing mirror off MY car or as actually happened recently, put a huge dent in my car door, well that damage just stays there for a while. I can’t afford to pay for repairs and I can’t afford to pay £300 excess to claim on insurance, you see I had to take a policy with £300 excess to be able to afford to run a car at all, a car that’s essential as I have two disabled children. Do you see the difference. My Dad - very well off - gets very frustrated by my lack of “attention to detail” because he sees a spot of damage and will be on the phone to his insurers within the hour or calling out tradesmen for quotes. Any damage is repaired within days and if his policy jumps a bit well that’s ok because he can well afford it.

See the difference?

RWCHNT is basically being married for me DH is fairly brilliant, but he is too good a dad ! He does destructive but really good fun creative activities with the DC and DSC, which usually involve traipsing mud through the house, cutting things straight onto the dining room table, using felt tips and paint without a mat on the coffee table and ... his latest triumph, letting DSS saw wood on the garden table (also made of wood, so you can guess how that ended!!!)

He is a bit older than me, so I am going to have a lovely house when I’m a 90 year old Singleton

"As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked.

I had time to see everything about her – her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever seen.

It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that ‘It isn’t the same for them as it would be for us’, and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her – understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe."

• THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER

I heartily agree with the loss of green spaces being a real issue in some areas because more and more houses are being built.
And people who throw rubbish from car windows are just pigs. If you do this, I want you know that I despise you.

I think it's difficult to know what the answer is. If indeed there is one. Back when there was less safety net people were more inclined to make an effort I think. My Mum and Dad never didn't work and my whole family is the same, as is DHs and all this during some of the highest unemployment levels ever and the highest rates of inflation and interest. There wasn't any safety net and we had no savings. However, we often went cold and hungry and we were lucky in that no-one had any illness or disabilities. My dad died at 67 though after being orphaned at 7 and being brought up in abject poverty and being abused in children's homes.

I wouldn't want a life like that for anyone but I wonder if peoples motivation for improving their own life is missing? It's like we've taken away the control for people to feel that they are the ones in charge and that they feel "done to" a bit too much. And it might feel good to be taken care of but also leaves a lot of time to look on the dark side and what you don't have rather than what you do?

The person on the large amount of benefits was moaning and moaning on about how this country is rubbish and full of immigrants and that he'd prefer to go and live in Spain to which DH was and . His only response given that he is at work and has to maintain a professional approach was to say that things are an awful lot worse in other countries and that he is glad he lives here rather than in some of them. It's all relative depending on who you compare yourself to.

Yes we need to keep the green spaces. Where else are we going to put the tents to house people.

because more and more houses are being built.

And yet we are also told that there is a housing shortage? Another situation where we can't really win. I wish I had a magic wand sometimes.

I wish I had a magic wand sometimes

There is no need for magic. The problems are actually quite straightforward, and solutions within our means.

What is required is the acknowledgement that our current system of rewarding only the few is creating an ill-working society. Then the will to implement.

I'm not sure it's that straightforward from where I am sitting. There are generations of people who don't know any better than to expect life to be handed to them on a plate and to be disgruntled when it isn't up to the standard they think they deserve. I'd love to think that a bit of redistribution would be the key and that it could be done quickly but I don't think it is. When you completely remove inequality then motivation disappears, the criminal world increases, and there will still be people who find a loophole. I'm up for supporting the vulnerable in society to be a full part of the community and to live a decent life and willing to put my hand in my pocket to do so (I would say we are at or just under average in terms of income/wealth). I'm just not sure if we are identifying the correct people to be the vulnerable. People want to know what they are getting, not what they can contribute.