Microstory 1822: Child Support

< > Table of Contents

When I was growing up, my family told me to get a hard-working job. It may have been the very first thing they said to me. I bet I came out of my mother 65 years ago, and they said, son, you need to know the value of honest manual labor. They didn’t care how well I did in school, or how good I was at socializing with the other kids. They could still remember the great depression, even though a long time had passed for them already, and they didn’t want me to go through the same problems they did. It was a nice sentiment, but it wasn’t very forward-thinking. Since they didn’t value education, I didn’t have much of a chance to explore my strengths, and learn new skills. I went from one blue collar job to the next. This factory, that warehouse, this office basement, that farm. I know it sounds like I kept getting fired, but that’s not what it was like. I would just keep getting better opportunities, or have to move somewhere else. In those days, finding work wasn’t all that hard. People always needed people like me to do the things that they didn’t want to do, and which robots hadn’t figured out how to do...yet. That’s kind of what this story is about. I had heard that someone or something would be coming for our jobs, but I didn’t know that meant every job I was possibly qualified to do. I didn’t know the last job I lost would be the last I ever had. I had picked up so many skills along the way, but it seemed like they were all out of date before I was old enough to survive on my retirement. You may think I was bitter, but I wasn’t. I saw it coming. I am not against automation in general. I even made sure my kids got themselves some skills that would make them indispensable within the workforce. But my daddy didn’t teach me the same, so I was unprepared for it to happen so soon.

I’m sure glad I raised my children differently than my parents did. It was a bit of a double edged sword, though. Now that they were grown, and had built great careers for themselves, they had more than enough amongst them to support me and my wife in my early forced retirement. Her parents were even worse. No daughter of theirs was going to work a day in her life. She was expected to find a man to take care of her. That was meant to be my responsibility, and I was failing everybody. Not once did my kids make me feel bad about giving us money even though I wasn’t even 60 years old yet. They said they were more than happy to give back what we gave to them. I know that this happened. I know that I raised them, and taught them, and helped them. It just didn’t feel like enough, and it felt like they were giving back far too much comparatively. Things did not get any better as the years went by. It was incredibly stressful, asking them for a little help when my social security benefits weren’t enough. It was a little less stressful when they started sending us what was basically an allowance, so we didn’t have to ask, but it was still difficult. It was better for the most part when they decided to set us up with some kind of fancy computer account where money would automatically transfer from their banks to ours, but in other ways, this was worse, because I felt like such a disappointment. One thing I let go was my health. We chose to eat a lot of fast food, because it’s cheaper, of course, and we wanted to stay frugal, since we had not truly earned this money. On the upside, my early death is going to release the kids from some of the burden. On the downside, I’m worried about my wife’s health, and there’s also this annoying thing about suffering a lethal heart attack at age 65. That’s not great.

Microstory 370: Utility?

Click here for a list of every step.
Passing Acquaintances

I’ve almost always dreaded getting to this entry. Not since the very beginning, mind you, because when I first laid this series out, I had an idea of what this meant. You know that thing where you write a note on a fast food restaurant napkin, then you go back to it, and you’ve lost context? If you’re a digital native, then no, I guess you don’t. Well, it’s annoying. Utility is about being useful, so I understand that part. What I don’t get is why I thought it was sufficiently different than, say economic participation or capacity to provide or positive contribution. Did I tell you how my process started? I first took Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and teased out 33 “needs” people have, some of which are more like wants. Then I broke them all into thirds so that I could make a whole set. I think I stemmed this one from preexisting topics without quite being able to admit to myself that it wasn’t different enough. I’m just useless. Haha, get it? I just went to my website and found out that I’ve already told you this. But I think it’s okay because what are the chances you read that other one, and then read this one? What are the chances you’ve read any of them, including this one? This story has two...uh. No, two hundred twenty, wait now I’m off. Two-hundred and thirty-nine words. Crap. As of the end of this sentence, I’ve done 252 words so far. There—noo! Have I told you about special characters? Ellipses and em dashes throw off the word count. Some counters count the string of text on either side of them as separate words, and some don’t. So if you’ve ever plugged one of these into an online word counter, and thought I was off, that’s just your perspective. Whoa, #throwbackThursday to my Perspectives series, which I personally consider to be my greatest microfiction achievement. We’ll have to wait and see with my faux headlines from the 500s, my dreams in the 800s, and my 99 900s problems. Oh yeah, I have this planned out through 2018 and beyond. Here’s a picture of a distorted utility meter as a pun.

I know what all of this means, I swear.

Strength

Microstory 41: Fast Food

Half the crowd at the fast food restaurant aren’t even eating. I guess at some of their motivations, unable to hear them with my headphones on. Many people go to coffee shops and libraries to study, but one college-aged girl is studying anatomy here. I can see the flashcards of the human body. What an odd choice of location. A man who had already finished his meal when I came in sits with his arms folded, watching one of the employees fiddle with the interface for the drink dispenser. An exhausted woman walks in and lets her two children run to the play area, happy to be free from them for a few moments while she orders. A younger man eats with his son who looks relieved to be there. He probably doesn’t get to eat fast food very often. A large family huddles around a small table. Why they didn’t pick a larger table when there are plenty of options, I couldn’t tell you. An elderly woman steps in, takes one look at the menu board, and immediately leaves, as if she didn’t realize how cheap this place was. A young girl moves back and forth from the car to the counter, taking turns with the people established in the queue. They seem to have messed up the order, and are having further troubles fixing the problem. A couple drives by the windows, stuffing their faces. They look like they haven’t eaten for days. A teenage boy uncomfortably stares at the wall, occasionally getting up to throw something away or look through the options of the drink dispenser, without a cup. He looks nervous. Maybe he knows something. And me. As I nurse my soda, I massage the grip of my gun, anxious for what I’m going to do next.