Losing to Fat Rats

Sometimes is an interesting word. It's as fleeting and frequent as its usage. Lives change sometimes, and the world will only sometimes notice. I grip the saw's handle tightly as I focus my strength on repeated strokes.
The solace is broken by a woman's voice, "Why are you cutting all the wood?"
I look up at Ashley; she seems honestly perplexed by what I'm doing. I take a moment to think about her question. Why have I been sawing log after log for at least half an hour? Boredom? Not exactly. Because I enjoy it? Sometimes, but not always, so also not a good answer. My father's instructions still ring clearly in my mind from when I was a young boy; "Be sure to stack it all nicely behind the shed. I don't want the weight of this winter's snow to topple the pile." Ten years later and I'm still capable of building a beautiful stack of wood. But this answer seems a bit too long winded to recite to a girl I barely know.
Finishing the cut on which I had been working, I grab the two fresh pieces of wood and walk over to my stack before turning to face Ashley. "Have you ever just felt like doing something?"
She knows that I'm dumbing down my answer for her. "No. Please explain."
"Well, the temperature is finally nice, and I can tell that the mosquitoes are going to be hitting us hard tomorrow, so now seems like the perfect time to prepare the wood."
Eyeing me while nodding her head, she takes a sip of her beer and turns back toward the fire. My answer must have seemed satisfactory.
By the time Chris returns from the throne, I'm cutting up the last log. I can hear his footsteps slow atop the millions of pine needles as he nears my glorious pile of wood. Before he chooses to say anything he settles by the fire as well. "Dallin, you're making us look bad."
As I finish the cut, I look up to say, "Nah, I figure we're even after you guys having to wake me up every morning."
Ash pulls a few pieces off the pile as I finally take my spot on the north side of the fire. We've had a difficult day on the mountain, and we happily allow the crackling fire to fill our void of conversation. The toenails peeking through the front ends of my flip flops are in need of a wash. Sighing in exasperation, I remove my right flip flop to examine the damage done today. It's been chewed to hell by those damn marmots. I can hear them squeaking in the distance, perhaps already planning tomorrow's raid.
"The marmots are coming for their revenge," Chris mumbles mostly to himself.
Some of our expensive equipment had been damaged the previous day by the giant rodents, and when they came a bit too close to our camp last night we chased them off with human ingenuity and big clubs. We haven't seen them since our reprisal, but more things were damaged today - including my sandals - and now we hear them squeaking incessantly just out of view. It's nerve wracking.
"If they were going to seek revenge they would have come for you while you were on the throne."
Glancing up at my unexpected reply, Chris grunts, "Yeah, I suppose you're right. No time more vulnerable than that."
"Or when we're sleeping," Ashley chimes in.
I tune in again to the crackling fire. I can still hear the marmots through the trees sometimes.

Reaching an Accord

"Utah, eh? What are you doing way out here in Tennessee?"
"That's a long story, man."
"Gotcha. Is this the car here?"
"Yeah, this is it."
Reaching into the back of his black Explorer, he says, "So, the total will come out at $189.95."
"How much?"
"$189.95"
"What! The guy on the phone said it was only 15 bucks!"
"Well, yeah, but that's only for the initial diagnosis."
Diagnosis? Where the hell does he think we are? An operating room?
"I won't pay it. No way."
"What do you mean you won't pay it?"
"What do you think I mean? I'll just open the damn door myself for free."
I watch as he feverishly writes down my license plate number - as if that actually matters.
"Fine, you don't have to pay me, but our company will just send you a bill instead."
"So what? I just won't pay your stupid bill. I didn't sign any contract with you people."
Sighing, he puts his hands on his hips and begins in a different tone, "Okay, I get it, we'll work with you. You can pay it in increments."
"Nope. Still not gonna pay."
"Okay, who's your insurance company? We can bill them instead if you want."
"My insurance company? I don't have full coverage on this POS, why would they pay?"
A look of utter bewilderment overcomes his face; I can see that his insurance suggestion wins over the majority of pissed off customers.
"Well, uh, they'll still pay for stuff like this."
"No, buddy, they will not. Trust me, I work for an insurance company. Even if I had that coverage I wouldn't claim something ridiculous like this."
Grumbling something about how he drove all the way out here, he picks up his notepad from off the trunk of my car and walks back to the rear of his own.
"Look, man, I'm sorry you came all the way out here, but you guys need to be a little more honest about your prices."
Turning toward me with a kit in his hand, he says, "I tell you what, you pay me the 15 in cash and I'll open your door, tell my boss that you refused to pay, and I'll tear up this sheet with your information so that you won't have to be bothered by us."
"Really?"
"Really."
"You call your boss right now so I can hear you tell him and you have a deal."
While feeding his boss a load of crap over the phone he shreds the paper and then hands me the pieces. "There you go, now the money."
"Open the door first."
"Fine."
I watch as he reaches into the car with what looks like a wire hanger and easily unlocks my door. Next time I'll just do it myself, even if the price is enticingly low.
"All right, here's your money."
Handling the cash lovingly in his hands, he smiles at me, "Thanks. Good doing business with you."
Laughing together, we shake hands before parting ways. "Yeah, you too."

Was this what we meant to do?

I've been musing on the state of our society lately, so don't read this if you hate hypothetical situations and purely unanswerable questions. Let me begin by saying that I like America; I don't necessarily love it, but I will say that I'm fairly attached, just not unconditionally so. I enjoy having a car to get wherever I feel like going, I like having running water and plumbing, and I don't mind having a phone with which I can contact whomever I need at the push of a button. I like these things, but what about the cost-to-benefit ratio?
What am I talking about? Bear with me and I'll tell you. Now let's speak hypothetically for a moment. How much does it cost to live? Let's say you're an American living in a relatively inexpensive region of the country, such as where I live. To keep things as cheap as possible, let's pose that you're single, have no children, have no mortgage, no car payment, no credit card bills, and no medical payments. Now let's say that you have found some VERY cheap rent somewhere for $200/mo, and you only spend $50 dollars on your cell phone bill and insurance each month (I know, that's about as cheap as can be fathomed, but this is hypothetical). Actually, drop the phone: you don't need that. Okay, so let's say you're in $200 for rent, $25 for insurance, and $50 for basic utilities. And tag on another $75 per month for gas and food. That's about as cheap as I can imagine anyone living in this country. $200 + $25 + $50 + $75 = $350. So, at the absolute minimum it will cost an American $350/month just to exist.
Now I'm not saying that the world sucks and is out to get us, I only think that occasionally. What I'm saying is that the $350 cost is the absolute minimum and almost everyone has expenses far higher than that. People get up each day, spend most of that day working at a job that they've hopefully learned to tolerate, and then go home to spend a few hours at the home they work so hard to pay for. Our society revolves around earning enough to exist. No one planned for our society to become this way, and there's no turning back now, but is this what we really want? Are we really better off than the pioneers of 200 years ago? Or the free-ranging tribes of a few millennia ago? Sure, the government we pay so much to exist supposedly protects us and our rights from oppression, and with enough money you can now pay to extend your life, but do the benefits really outweigh the costs?
If I could reduce my standard of living in order to radically reduce my cost of existence, you bet I would. I'm just not sure anymore if the trajectory our society has placed itself on is the right one. Buy a car, buy a home, buy health insurance so you can afford kids, buy a TV, buy internet, buy a phone, buy a nicer car than your neighbor's, buy a bigger home for the extra kids, buy more food, buy dental insurance, accrue some harmless debt, buy some more stuff, and then spend 25 years enjoying your assorted outdated items and trying to pay off your debts until you kick the bucket. Was all the work and worry worth it? I don't know because I don't own much, but it doesn't seem like it to me. It's a shame that the whole world is in such a hurry to follow our lead.