Neat and Tidy Is Nice

Wal-Mart to pick up a few items.  I'm not sure this is a better choice than Amazon - both of them being huge, soulless, monstrosities - but at least this way I'm helping employ a local or two.  The guy who was running the check-out lane was energetic and outgoing, engaging all of the customers coming down his aisle.  He wished the woman in front of me a Merry Christmas, then turned to me and made a comment along the lines that it may be a little harder this year than others.  He wasn't bitching or being negative - it was more of a wry observation.

I enjoy talking to people I'm never going to see again for short periods of time - anything beyond that tries my patience.  After a few pleasantries and non-specific ramblings I asked: "So . . . they giving you enough hours?"

Floodgates and, again, not in the manner of someone airing a grievance.

"No," he said.  "Not even close.  Maybe 30 hours a week.  At $13-something an hour that's not enough for me to live on."

Apparently he's staying (if by "staying" you mean "living") in a residential hotel with his wife and two children.  Numbers guy that I am I clicked my mental abacus: 30 X 13 = $390 a week . . . before taxes.  I live in an incredibly expensive state where I doubt you could rent a one bedroom apartment for $1500 a month let alone pay all of your other bills.  This dude is thinking of leaving for a much less expensive state.  I wager he won't like the weather and the terrain and the general vibe as much there but hopefully he'll be able to enjoy a semi-middle class lifestyle (if by "semi-middle class lifestyle" you mean "a dwelling AND food AND a car").

I don't want this to be a economics lesson but rather a reminder than when I talk to new people I learn new lessons.  Is this guy more interested in staunching the spread of CoVid or is he more interested in having society open up so that he can work more hours and pay his bills?  Not an easy choice for someone living on the margin.  I'm reminded of the old bromide "money isn't that important unless you don't have any."

Our neighbor's son is a policeman.  He was sharing yesterday that a lot of his fellow cops have gotten sick (no deaths to this point, thank god) and that he's seen a big uptick in suicides over the last few months (partly due to the holidays where more despondent people kill themselves than during any other time of the year) and that he has three school age children who are at home, understandably bored and frustrated and lonely.

So what's the answer to all this?  Not neat and tidy, is it?