Work Fling Sting

      “So, what happened?”  The video was a little bit iffy.  The wifi was good at Mom’s house but it wasn’t great.  It worked well enough because it didn’t have much competition.  The only person using it was me.  Mom still loved her traditional hardwired TV.

     We had tried to get her to cut the cable but she wasn’t and still isn’t a huge fan of learning new technology.  I tried to show her how she could watch the shows and news programs she wanted via apps and the internet.  She wanted no part of it.  Too many buttons to push.  Too much mess to manage.

     “I just want to turn on the tv and put it on channel 3.  I don’t have time for all these apps and crap.  Just give me my clicker.  As much money as I pay for all of this, I should just be able to say what I want and the TV should just play it!”

     “Mom,” I said picking up the remote, “you, you can do that.”  Those were my famous last words.  For the next five minutes she watched me fight to have my voice recognized, try to find what I want in one place but get redirected to another, and finally put the remote down in frustration and hand her back her ‘clicker’.

     “It was fine.  He came over and we made dinner.”  Karen answered over the iffy video.

     “Oh that’s…”

     “And then, I kissed him.”

     “Oh…” I was surprised.  She had never been the aggressive one.

     “That sounds great!”  I was really happy for her.  “Annnd…”

     “Annnd he stayed over,” she dropped her shoulders.  I felt that ping thing again.

     “Was it bad?  Did he hurt you?”  I felt a little knot in my chest.

     “No.  Nothing like that.  He was kind and fun.  He was kind and fun the next morning,” she smiled a sad little smile.

     “So, what happened?”

     “When he went to take a shower, his phone rang…”

     “Oh, Karen…” I knew where this was headed.

     “Then the texts from someone named Cheryl started.  ‘Where are you?  Why didn’t you come home?  I thought we were going to meet this morning to talk?’ Then the phone rang a couple more times.”

     “I’m so sorry.”

     “When he got out of the shower I said ‘Sounds like someone’s blowing up your phone’.  He just looked at the messages and said, ‘Oh shit!  I had a great time.  I should have told you … I have to go.’  Then he just got dressed and left.”

     “Oh Karen, I’m so sorry.”

     “I mean, it’s not like I was expecting a wedding ring or anything but some common fucking courtesy would have been nice.  ‘Oh by the way I’m seeing someone’ or ‘This is my soon to be ex and we need to talk things through before it’s finally over.’  None of that.  Just ‘Oh shit! I have to go.’  The good thing about this pandemic is I get to work from home and I don’t have to see them in person.”

     “Them?”

     “They went twit/face/insta/snap official a week later.  Apparently he left his ex to move in with her and now they’re together because of the pandemic.”

     “Twit/face/insta/snap official?  How old are these people?”

     “You don’t want to know.”

     She didn’t cry.  I sat quietly.

     “This shit isn’t supposed to be this hard,” she finally said.  I was worried the video had frozen.

     “It’s not,” I replied.  “But it is.  The lows make the highs higher.  I don’t know if it matters, but when this shitshow virus thing is over and we can do movie nights again, I’ve got a big Kare-Bear hug for you.  You can even pick the next few movies.”

     “The Twilight Series,” she said, far too quickly.  She smiled a real smile for the first time.

     “Really?!?  How old are you?”

     “It’s either that or The Notebook.”

     “Why must you hate me so?” I asked closing my eyes and shaking my head.

     “The lows make the highs higher,” she mocked.

     It was my turn to smile.

     “I have to prep a zoom meeting,” she said rubbing her face.  “I’ll talk to you soon.”

     “You take care of yourself,” I said as the screen went blank.

     I knew I was too much of a mess to manage.  I also knew that if you try to find what you want in one place and get redirected back to another, the universe is usually telling you where you need to be.

Week Four

      I really didn’t mind being at home.  There were no unnecessary trips.  I was back at my Mom’s house.  I was there to make sure she was ok and her world was doing fine.  She was all of those things and more.  The rest of the world was not doing fine.

     It was hard to believe the reports of death and sickness touted on the news.  It always felt like a huge scare tactic to keep you watching.  Many of the news stations are really good at this tactic.

     The best ones make you believe everyone else is deceiving you and only they will tell you the truth.  They make you feel special with a little dopamine hit then cut to their sponsors who knocked you down a bit.  The sponsors let you know that you can get that special feeling back if you buy their product.  It’s a vicious cycle.

     After a few days the news and the podcasts were turned off.  I dug deep into audiobooks from the library.  My library card allows me access to digital audio and ebooks.  The selection can be a bit limited but I always find something to get me through.

     It was a whole lot less expensive than trying to maintain paid subscriptions to the Ama/Dis/Hu/Net/Para money grab. Sadly, I hadn’t ended all the subscriptions, yet.  I was still trying to get through my favorites lists on each platform.  These things should have been the first to go.

     This was not a good thing because there were no new clients coming in the door.  There was no door for clients to open.  The walls of fear and confusion were going up faster than the doors to discovery could be built.  Finances were even tighter.

     There were still certain clients we were trying to get into the Darwin Funds.  Not in this cycle, the next one, when the markets came back.  Generally, the markets always come back and we can move things, but at that moment we told most people to hunker down and wait for the world to work its way back to normal.  The job had become a weekly reassuring phone call and email letting people know we were monitoring the situation.

     The general thought was to hold.  You only really lose in a lull if you sell at the bottom.  We would get them into the Darwin Funds when the market came back up.  It did no good to jump ship now.

     There was literally no place to go.  Most large gathering spots (hotels, restaurants, clubs, bars) were closed.  Grocery stores had limited hours and a limited amount of people that could be let in at a time.  People were waiting to see what would happen over the next month or two.  No one needed me to help them save money they weren’t really spending.

     I didn’t miss the drive to Hartford.  I didn’t miss the clients who wouldn’t show for appointments they pushed to Saturdays.  I didn’t miss paying for parking.  I didn’t miss having to put gas in the car every 4 days.  I didn’t miss being in traffic or seeing the aftermath of car accidents.  I didn’t miss two hour detours due to said accidents.

     There were things I did miss.  I missed dinners with Marrianne.  I missed movie nights with Karen but I had to give her some breathing room to see how her thing from work worked.

     Tony and Amber were still making a go of things.  Tessa was distracted by a new age appropriate guy who was gunning for her attention.  Strangely her fling caused a little chest ping but that was a good thing.

     I still hadn’t heard from a few folks but I wasn’t going to give up on them.  You only really lose if you walk away when things are at rock bottom.  Now was time to hunker down and wait for the world to work its way back to normal.