"My father was a successful business owner and my mother dedicated herself full-time to raising my sister and me. When we kids were finally both safely in college with good financial aid in place, my parents decided to take a big risk and move across the country to work on a fixer-upper property, which they hoped to get running as a motel."The next three years were the hardest my family has experienced. I sunk into a depression that led to withdrawing from school one or two credits away from a degree. My father invited me to come and help out with his new project, and so I went there with my fancy almost-college education and watched impotently as bad decisions, a bad market, and bad luck ate away my parents' life savings, month after insolvent month."With the inevitable foreclosure only weeks away, I told my parents I'd go back to finish school and start paying my own way. I was cutting and running, but my parents never blamed me; they only blamed themselves for not being able to give me gas money to get there. They went with the lie and wished me the best, thanked me for my help, and waved goodbye with brave smiles. I only made it a couple miles down the 95 before I had to pull into a gas station and cry into the steering wheel, with the odds and ends of what had been a nice upper-middle-class upbringing packed in my slowly aging car."I slunk back into my college town and took on jobs that I'd always considered beneath me: jobs with tips, jobs with hats and aprons. Part-time work at restaurants kept me afloat as I finished my degree. As I finally started learning how to manage my own life, I realized how much I had yet to learn about living and about other people. I never knew how EBT can mean the difference between a month that feels okay and a month of feeling vaguely hungry all the time. I never knew the amount of petty, sometimes unthinking injustice many employees endure from managers and customers, simply because there is no other choice if you want that paycheck. And I never knew that a person's level of education or income has very little to do with the worth of their character. Some of the best friends I have now are people I honestly would have dismissed as townies in my undergrad years."Next month, I'll be starting a full-time job with benefits, with enough pay to maybe help my parents out as they face retirement age. I thought about cutting up my EBT card, but now I think I'll keep it in my wallet to remind me of the wolf that is always at the door — and of the people who live their lives beating it back with brooms." — punnilinguist