3. Water Down Shampoo/Conditioner

If your mom winds up getting a job as a part time secretary, your family might start to have some walking around money. The kind that your mom begrudgingly uses to buy you that V05 shampoo AND separate conditioner that you have wanted (the kind that smells like strawberries like on the commercials) because you threatened to run to the customer service person and tell them that the angry lady rolling her eyes at you is a stranger and kidnapped you. But Dad will be damned if you waste even one molecule of that ridiculous purchase your mother made. Once there is only a little residue clinging to the edges, you water that bottle DOWN and shake it like crazy. You then pour the cocktail, which now has the consistency of the drool coming out of that kid's mouth in class that always picks his nose and stares out the window, all over your head. You scrub furiously, hoping that the foaming action will work even a little. It doesn't. You just have to have faith that you will go to school the next day smelling faintly of what DuPont Inc. wants you to believe is strawberries so that you can sit next to the cool kids. You know the ones...they have the Trapper Keepers.

2. Use Pert Plus

Of course, this is referring to upper middle poor class. If you were lower poor class, you bought the store brand shampoo/conditioner combination. Because why spend money on shampoo AND conditioner when you can get both in one handy bottle? Never mind that it does a shitty job at either shampooing or conditioning, think of Francis down the street. She doesn't get conditioner at all, that's why she always comes to school lookin' like she stuck a fork in the electric socket.

1. Eat a Lot of Beans and Rice

Maybe it was red beans and dirty rice. Maybe it was black beans and Spanish rice. Maybe there was a bay leaf stuck in the middle of it it to jazz it up. Your parents tried to camouflage over the years but underneath it's all the same...beans and rice and rice and beans and day in and day out rice and beans.