The Promise of Nightmares

There are lyrics from the Dropkick Murphys newest release that go like this:

Something in this country has got to change if we’re ever gonna see those days again. Your parents may have done it with just one job, but now we’re working for less and twice as hard. – “Tomorrow’s Industry”

I’ve come to terms with the fact that the American dream is a fraud. The minute that my family and I left the flat plains and Great Lakes of Michigan over four years ago, we’ve searched for it and to this day have not only fallen away from the dream itself, but we’ve been dropped into what can only be termed a nightmare. A year of hope and of supposed promise has come down to one word: Target.

About a month ago I had to admit to myself that the working conditions under which I was employed by family not only became increasingly strained, but became more of a burden than fruit-bearing. Kim was removed from the company payroll in June and my pay schedule became erratic which doesn’t work when you’re trying your hardest to make sure that your bank account stays above the zero dollar mark, which I have to gleefully admit has been the case for ten months now. It’s fucking hard to do in our situation and I’ll publicly give myself a pat on the back for it any time. Nonetheless, with an erratic pay schedule (erratic meaning not very frequent or very timely – such is life in the small business world), money earmarked for bills often had to go towards food and gas because not enough of it would come in to pay actual bills. Understanding this, though, made me come to grips that I needed to make my relationship with my familial employer less business and more, um, what it was before. I declared I would only be able to work part time on an unscheduled basis while I’d be seeking employment at Target (where my wife has worked since late June) as an overnight team member.

Working at Target has proven to be grueling and rewarding at the same time. I unload from the daily trucks the boxes in which reside all the goodies that the privileged class in Encinitas and beyond crave – appliances, meds, clothes, toys, exercise equipment, and just about anything else you can think of. I sweat. I get sore. I get dirty. I love it. I’ve lost somewhere around ten pounds in the last few weeks and feel a hell of a lot more fit just because I’ve been hauling all this shit around. Working in those dark hours made quite a couple things clear to me. First, virtually no one who shops at Target during the day has any clue where the product comes from and how it gets there. Second, these same cracker-asses that cry about taxes and illegals entering the country haven’t an idea how hard those “dirty Mexicans” work to put the product on the shelves for the bourgeoisie to plop in their carts, drive home, and forget about in a month’s time. It’s ironic that the consumerist life’s blood of the San Diego area is borne by the Mexicans, who are the clear majority on my shift and basically feed the system in which capitalism at it’s most ugly thrives – to the utter joy of the pigs in the hills.

The bottom line, though, is this: here I am, just over a year later when I was sure I’d be in some sort of financially stable living situation only to stare down the spectre of working nights, working part time during the days, watching my wife have to go to work, and hoping that I can get paid even my part time wages on time so that rent is covered – further evidence that the dream does not exist unless you have the collateral to begin with.

The barometer by which I gauge my success is primarily comprised of one factor: my children. I feel more successful when I can clothe them in newish clothing. I feel like a proper Dad when I can take them places for their enjoyment and spend just a little cash. I feel like I am doing the proper thing by sending them to a good Catholic school. I feel like I can be proud when I can simply say yes to the small things they love like books or music. In the last year each one of these factors of the barometer has deteriorated or completely burned to ashes and it makes me mad as hell.

Working for less and twice as hard, indeed.