Remittance

We are taught to plan for the future.  In school, we learn about the little ant who works all summer storing away food for winter.  Or was that a squirrel?  The grasshopper, on the other hand, fiddled away his days so that when winter came, he had nothing.  It depends on your personality, I guess.  I am attracted to grasshoppers.  But I know better.  I want my girlfriends to be the other.  I would be that grasshopper with an ant/squirrel for a caretaker.  But I have no caretaker, and now I worry.  Winter's coming on.  All the ant/squirrels will tell me I reap what I sow.  But it doesn't always turn out that way.  I've known people who have lived for a future that never came, lives ended just as they were to reap what they'd sown.  I've known others, grasshoppers, who suddenly come into everything.  It is unpredictable.  But not completely.  And I would have to guess that observation has led people to go with the odds.

But it occurs to me that people who have saved their money, who have squirreled it away for leaner times, whether they ever enjoy the fruits of their labor, had happiness and joy all along.  They enjoyed scrimping and saving, enjoyed cutting coupons and trying to get things for cheap or for free at every turn.  I once had a factory supervisor who had been an egg farmer (?) for years and made a ton of money.  Then he sold the business and came to the factory as a boss with connections.  He was a decent fellow.  His joy came from saving money.

When he retired, he and his wife were going to begin the life they'd saved for.  First thing they did was take a cruise to Hawaii.  You know what happened.  He didn't last much longer.  He was eaten from the inside.  The probable cause was the chemicals used in chicken farming.

I didn't know his wife, but I've always wondered if the following years made up for a lifetime of privation.

The families surrounding me in my neighborhood are made safe by money.  There are many doctors and dentists and a good number of successful lawyers.  And then there are a slew of trust funders.  Their houses and lawns are well-kempt and they drive new cars and go on expensive vacations.  Their children grow up privileged and go away to good colleges and come home doctors and lawyers.  And these are the people who convince factory workers they must save for the future.

Save what?  For most people right now, there is nothing left at the end of the day.  To save, they must eat the foods that are always on special, high fat foods full of corn syrup.  Cheetos and Little Debbie Cakes.  McDonalds.  Their cars are beaters.  They haven't been on a real vacation for years, just trips out of town to stay with relatives.  And then, deprived and pissed off, they succor themselves by purchasing an iPhone--a necessity.  Everybody needs something.

I think that is what has shaped me having grown up a factory worker's child.  I watched my parents and thought, "No.  I want extremes."

But I don't, really.  I want a governor.  A caretaker who will dole out the money in small sums that I will spend foolishly right away to wait in deprivation until the next allotment arrives.

"I say, might you consider lending me five dollars.  I am waiting on a check and will surely pay you back next Thursday. . . . "