I may have mentioned this once before on this site, but last month marked the 10-year anniversary of my career in the service industry and it's been causing me to do some self-reflecting. Hence yesterday's post about the samurai showdown in the parking lot at White Castle.

In addition to a few different fast food joints, I've worked in my share of retail outlets over the years, and one trend that's always fascinated me are these black guys who have somehow managed to convince women to buy them a shiteload of clothes and, presumably, some of everything else as well, since you get the idea that none of these guys have a legit, steady source of income.

And I don't mean pimps, either - guys who find impressionable young girls fresh off the bus from Fenton or whatever and use the powers of persuasion and crystal meth to get them to turn tricks and then hand the money over to them. No, I mean broke motherfuckers who shack up with some 600 pound white woman who's got a good job working at the hospital or whatever.

It can be difficult not to feel jealous of a brother who's manage to secure such a situation for himself, even if it means having to bang a disgusting fat woman every once in a while. If you're a brother such as myself, without much to offer a woman other than my (arguably) stellar blogging ability, you might end up having to bang a fat chick anyway, and the shit might actually cost you money.

Interestingly enough, this may be yet another one of these unfortunate trends that starts out in the black community and eventually spreads to our cracka-ass cracka counterparts, just like AIDS.

The other day, in the Style section of the New York Times, where they run all of their least defensible trend stories, there was a story - written by a guy, I should note - about young (-ish), high-achieving broads who are having a hard time maintaining relationships with men who don't earn nearly as much money as they do.

As the Times story notes, even though our fathers' generation managed to maintain the proper income disparity between a man and a woman, that shit's pretty much over and done with as far as us Gen Y bums are concerned. Which, admittedly, was hardly news to me.

To wit:

For the first time, women in their 20s who work full time in several American cities — New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis — are earning higher wages than men in the same age range, according to a recent analysis of 2005 census data by Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York.

For instance, the median income of women age 21 to 30 in New York who are employed full time was 17 percent higher than that of comparable men.

*takes a five minute break to weep for his manliness*

Now, if you're a noted racist such as myself, you might be thinking: if you make well into six figures, and you're not quite 30 (allegedly), how fucking hard can it be to convince a man to be with you? All you've got to do is buy him some shit, break him off with some stank, and shut the fuck up.

Of course the Times story isn't gonna go there, but you get the idea that it's this last part that's the real issue. According to several women interviewed for the story, money wasn't the issue. After all, they're making more than enough to pay for the both of them. But they complained that the guys didn't seem suitably motivated or were intimidated by the idea of a woman making more money than them.

Oh, really?

Like I said, maybe I'm just more used to this, being a young black man of questionable redeeming value myself, but why in the fuck should I feel intimidated by a woman who makes more money than I do? If anything, it would be a boost to my ego to know that I could accomplish such a feat. I'd bring it up in conversation as much as possible.

And since I sit around all day reading books, magazines and newspapers anyway, I realize this is not some consequence of women being smarter than men, but rather an overall shift in the economy away from jobs that are suitable for a man, such as manufacturing, in favor of jobs that are only suitable for a woman, like rubbing lotion on and old man's balls in a hospital.

No, it's obvious to me that women - even women who are so wealthy that money shouldn't be an issue one way or the other - just plain don't like the idea of being with a man who makes less money than they do. I'm not saying womany are gold diggers or anything. I'm just saying, it's a woman's bioligical imperative to take a man for all he's worth, just like it's a man's bioligical imperative to score with a woman with a relatively high boob-to-waist ratio.

The problem is that I'm sure that the few men left these days who can secure an income that's suitable for a man probably have their run of smokin' hot chicks, especially in the cities mentioned in the Times story. And if you notice, both of the broads pictured in the story are kinda chubby and ethnic-looking and probably not really in their twenties.

Two obvious solutions to this problem would be, a) to fix the economy so a man can make a decent living once more, or b) for these gold-digging beeyotches to get over themselves and learn how to accept a man who might not actually be worth a shit - just like so many men have had to do since the beginning of time.

To be honest with you, I'm actually hoping it's the latter, but I suppose it wouldn't work out too bad for me one way or the other. As long as something happens. (Something's gonna happen, right?)

***

For more on this issue, you might want to check my boy TAN:

NY Times Doles Out Good Advice for Bums Looking for Love and Money; Mostly Money [The Assimilated Negro]

More From XXL