Often we hear the words Unintended Consequences, meaning that some things happen in spite of our best planning. For example, we ‘borrow’ Dad’s car without permission for a short ride some evening, over to our friend’s house. We have been there, driven there, a hundred times, we know how to drive well, we have our learner’s permit in our pocket, right?

It really wasn’t our fault the jerk backed into us at McDonald’s and crumpled the fender. The flat tire it caused complicated things a little too. Now we have another problem, how do we explain these unintended things to Dad, especially the fact that we had used the car without permission?

At this point you are on your own, I’m not going to help. Fourth of July comes along and you hear that your friend has a whole box of M-80s that his brother brought back from Missouri. M-80s are cool (and super powerful, beats sparklers hands down on the Fourth). We’ll take them over to the field behind Jimmy’s house with some assorted bottles and cans and have a little safe fun, no little kids, no dogs, Jimmy and I understand safety, right? All goes well, cans fly, bottles explode, but then Jimmy (the Stupid) accidentally sets the dry grass on fire and the wind blows, just a little.

“C’mon Jimmy, you butt hole, help me get the fire out.” Stomping, stomping, finally get the fire out, adrenalin pounding, before any major damage happens but alas, a neighbor has called the fire department with an LEO in tow. It was your first ride home in a police car and the explanations begin. “Mom, it was an accident, we didn’t mean for the fire to start.”

With any luck the unintended consequences result in your cell phone going missing for a month, two weeks restriction, a verbal kick in the butt from Dad and Jimmy’s brother never, ever will bring any kind of pyrotechnics home from Missouri.

Finally, you get to be 17 and you want to get a job at the local fast food place. All the neighbor kids, including Jimmy, now that he got off his 3 months in house detention, have jobs and of course you want/need some spending money. Old Milwaukee isn’t cheap. As the new guy you get to pick the trash from the parking lot, clean the grease trap on Wednesday and wash tables the rest of the time, but it does pay. You get your first check, 18 hours @ $7. an hour, you’ll be in the big bucks. “Hey, wait a minute, this check is only for $98, where’s the rest of the my money?” The manager patiently explains FICA and income tax, as he has done to the last 100 short term employees. You weren’t aware there was some unexpected and unintended consequences when you work up to elbows in grease, not to mention Suzee says you smell like week-old French fries and you don’t take that as a compliment.

Graduation finally drags around, summer passes at the pool and it’s time to head for college. Choosing a major was kind of tough, since math and stuff are a lot harder than finding Pornhub on Jimmy’s brother’s computer. What to choose? Remembering those things the counselor had said about your choices are going to make a lot of difference in your future adult life so you want to choose wisely. Finally you decide and get into a med tech program, it’s 5 years but should be fun, cute girls, things like that.

Do you know how tough it is to get up for an 8 o’clock class, every day? Who would have thought there would be chemistry and stuff? And trying to study with those crazy guys in the dorm? Maybe I’ll switch to Forestry, I’m an outdoor guy, wouldn’t like to be in a lab all day anyway. Hey, what’s this? Why do I have to take chemistry, I want to be out in the woods?

“Oh hey, Jimmy, whassup, bro? Naw, I decided to go to VoTech, a couple years and I’ll be done and making some money. You? Oh, you and Suzee are both in pre-nursing? Tough, huh? You’re running a 3.7 GPA after two years? Great, man.”

“Yeah, I got a couple student loans that kick in right away, not too bad, about 28K or so. It’ll be a piece of cake after I finish VoTech, I’ll need to get a little more for that but I’ll be working over at the fast food place, 20 hours a week, that will help and it’ll only take a couple years and I’ll be back on my feet.”

“Yeah, I was hoping Bernie would get the nomination and then win the election. Bernie understands what it like when the fat cat corporations are running things and us stiffs are working for wages. I wish we’d unionize, get single payer and enjoy all the benefits. I’m taking it in the shorts, my company charges the customer $105 an hour for labor and I get $22 only, you can see how much they are making off my work. Well, yeah, I get two weeks paid vacation and 9 days sick leave but still.”

If Bernie had gotten elected my student loans would have been paid off, I might have even thought about going back to school with the free college thing. Of course, now that we’re shut down I’ll be collecting unemployment plus $600 a week, I’ll be fishing every day and laughing at the old days of cheap beer. There’s been some talk about the shop never opening again, but that’s the way those kind of people talk to cut your wages when we do go back.

“Oh hi Jim, how ya doin,’ bro? Yeah, I saw on TV you guys are bustin’ your butts on this virus thing. Naw, looks like we may have a pretty long layoff, maybe the company will fold, move to Mexico or some other cheap labor place. Yeah, me too, the groceries seem to be going out of sight, damned inflation. We used to have a little left over for a coupla beers at the old bar but no one goes there much anymore. I actually like riding my bike around, car was a lot of trouble, insurance and maintenance and all. Bike gives me some exercise.”

It’s really tough to understand, we grew up fairly comfortable, had a little fun along the way. It’s different now, kids never seem to be outside playing anymore. The theater closed a long time ago, they tore the building down 7-8 years ago, the street people were destroying the inside, filthy, dangerous.

Maybe we need to get different people in office, stronger, take charge people, get people back to work again. Remember in our history classes that back in the ’30s there were work programs, even had work in the name. Men could earn a liveable wage and take care of their families without so much worrying.

I wonder what happened? Why didn’t someone do something? Roosevelt was lucky, he had a war and everything turned out all right. Maybe that’s what we need, a good war. Who, me, I’m 28, why do you ask? Naw, I’d be too old. Besides, who’d take care of my folks, if they got sick again?