jkcki

"I guess I did a thing?"

If he's seen in public? It's a body double.

If someone says they saw him personally? They're a crisis actor.

If he speaks directly to you? Do not speak back; to speak to the dead is to forfeit your soul.

(TW: Just a straight bummer.)

I was four when my mother handed me to strangers - she told me we would dip Easter eggs. A lady cycled up on a bike - I wouldn't see my mother again for two years.

When I did see her again, it was Christmas. Her boyfriend brought me a toy microscope. The man I was with pulled ribbons of flesh from his skin and insisted: they're moving! You see? The worms?

My mother did take me home that night - at her boyfriend's insistence. But after that the holidays were still haphazard. One night she made us drive three hours so she could give me an extra gift basket someone was giving away for free. Another night, we were evicted.

I never really know how to deal with the holidays. I've memories of my father, back from prisons, trying to catch up on gifts with secondhand salt shakers, books and pins from interests ten years prior.

Even small things, like a stay-at-home boyfriend telling me, "I couldn't afford your gift, so I returned it," still recur and still burn.

Unrelated, did you know that Kalief Browder, a 16 year old accused of stealing a backpack, was held on Riker's Island for three years without a trial because his parents couldn't afford bail?

I ended up going with a small Samoan company that did the job at like 1/2 the price of the other quotes - and kindly.

Since then, I've had numerous similar experiences with "conventional" companies.

When I needed concrete installed, every company told me that the others were lying and I needed something different: one said I needed a run-off report, another said I needed a drainage system first, and they all conflicted. A random guy from Craigslist did it for me, it passed code inspection, and never caused a problem.

When I bought propane, they created a leak - twice - so they could refill my tank. When I got plumbing work done, they did the work to the wrong code and tried to charge me to fix it.

Dealing with random immigrant companies has *never* yielded me problems like this. They don't ask where my husband is. They don't overcharge me.

But the problem of labor in America has nothing to do with American employees being lazy or immigrants being cheap - it's the entitlement and utter disconnect of the owners. These are issues of policy: owners who want to squeeze more from the customer, owners who have disdain for both their employees and their clientele.

I don't think I'm the only person who has noticed how many companies today are really just scams. How many small local businesses are actually still a nexus of corruption or bigotry, even if they are "small and local."