Nots

 Haves and have nots. 

There are a lot of have nots here in the less than fully United States. 

Jeff Bezos makes two hundred thousand dollars a minute. 

I do not. I make substantially less. Not to the degree that I have to apply for food assistance. I will not be purchasing a second home for my retirement, nor will I be buying a yacht for the purpose of providing me with a destination to which I can fly my private jet. I will say unequivocally that there are plenty of Americans who have it worse than me. 

This should give me some solace, right? After nearly thirty years into my teaching career, I can finally start to consider laying down my burden and becoming that illusory landed gentry who might spend his golden years coming up with home improvement projects and imagining trips to places I always wanted to see before I can no longer see. 

This will only happen if I find a way to avoid major health complications that could befall me or my beloved spouse. Health insurance currently has a great big question mark hanging over it. So does food. And yes I feel pretty clever about having solar panels on my house already because electricity has gone the way of beef in terms of price. 

Of course, if you're Mister Bezos, you can weather this storm for a good long while. As a matter of fact, over the past forty years, the gulf between those of us who can get by and those who insist that eventually their piles of cash will trickle down to save our literal bacon has increased to a frightening degree. The idea that we might all end up crackers made from dead people doesn't seem like science fiction but a practical use of available resources. I can even imagine that there will eventually a government program in which citizens will be encouraged to offer their family members up to become part of this solution for a nominal fee. 

Like the six hundred dollar checks we all received for living through COVID. 

And all the while, the Great Orange Cankle who is by no means one of the wealthiest men in the world is busy spending his time and our money refurbishing White House bathrooms and constructing the Epstein Ballroom. 

In the wealthiest country in the world, nearly fifty million Americans live with food insecurity. Fourteen million of those are children. Millions of Americans live in substandard housing, with millions more facing eviction from the place they call home. 

When something gets stretched like that, one might expect it to break. 

It's just a matter of when.