then they started fighting Covid precautions.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that the ozone was disappearing and the earth was dying and we needed to recycle and save the planet.

now my parents think climate change is a myth.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that racism was a plague, that we had to love and accept everyone, that we should never judge before walking a mile in their shoes.

then they told me that protesting for my Black siblings was wrong.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that we needed to give to the poor. working at soup kitchens. making quilts. collecting food and money and supplies. building houses. because it was the christian and just plain right thing to do.

now they look at me, on food stamps with their grandchildren, and lament the "welfare state".

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and that any rich man, especially an immoral one, should never run our country.

you can guess who they voted for.

i remember adults telling me, as a kid, so very much.

And the new kid sniggered “isn’t perpendicular a bit of a big word for McDonald’s?”

Something in me was just so annoyed by this 16yr old who was learning to work right next to me and somehow felt above us? Fuck that shit. I pointed at the people just on the floor and went off, “she’s a 4th year law student, she’s the primary career for her terminally ill daughter, he raises 100,000 for charity every year, she manages 3 stores and more than £16mil in turnover a year. What the fuck do you do?”

He just sort of mumbled “I didn’t know”

Fast food workers bust their asses surrounded by hot ovens and boiling oil so you can get food quickly without having to make it yourself or even learn how.

Janitors bust their asses cleaning up the most vile things humans can do to a public room so you don’t have to tiptoe around human waste everywhere you go.

Mail carriers bust their asses going door to door in near-fatal heat/cold and have to deal with the possibility of getting attacked by your poorly-trained pets so you don’t have to drive to the post office every single day.

Warehouse workers bust their asses making sure YOUR latest Amazon crap doesn’t just disappear into thin air.

And retail workers bust their asses coddling and picking up after you like your parents because none of you know how to read a price tag or stop deliberately miss-shelving things you never wanted.