The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

If you thought work was scarce as chicken teeth down here on the slothful South End, you probably figured Covid wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference, meaning, you and me were wrong. Parents with kids who stayed home and learned virtually, well, virtually nothing, good luck finding child care. Every store has a HELP WANTED sign out, permanently. Clerks, bus drivers, bartenders, waitresses, hair dressers, all of them work awhile then quit, low pay, hassles with the anti-vaxx, anti-mask crowd, no one to take care of the kids at home, good unemployment benefits, all of the above.

Melissa Jurgenson, an old friend of mine from back when we both first moved here in the Paleolithic and did odd jobs to keep us from going back to the hell that drove us to the far reaches of civilization, just took a job clerking at the South End Camano Convenience Store, a FOR SALE sign out front on the highway, not probably a smart ‘career’ move. The current owner pays two bucks more than minimum, quite a few bucks less than a living wage and nowhere near what would qualify as fair payment for the grief she takes from customers who blame her for the trampling on their right to infect whoever they damn well please.

But her husband Frank – a guy I met the first visit who grunted at our introduction, grabbed a beer (my beer actually) out of the fridge, demanded to know when dinner would be ready before retreating to his room and slamming the door – well, Frank holds the purse strings. Says she can’t handle money. Says she’ll have to work for the meager things she wants to buy. Says she’s lucky to have a fiscal genius like himself. I, of course, say Gee, Melissa, it’s the 21st Century and Frank is just a little behind the times, if not actually prehistoric.

But … love, or what passes for it on the hoary South End, has no pride, just like the song says. I guess if this were a better world we’d all have great jobs, good salaries, nice bosses and spouses who treat us as equals and share the good times as well as the hard times. Melissa made her choice, stayed on the South End, raised their three kids and now probably wonders, ringing up a pack of Camels and a six pack of beer for a tourist who thinks maybe this is Paradise, when exactly did she stop thinking it is …?

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