Month: February 2024

Upon first hitting the pandemic, they sent us home to work remotely.  None of us had ever encountered a worldwide contagious health risk.  The initial mail from the office came in on the first week of March 2020; we played it by ear.  That message assured us that we should work remotely for at least three weeks.  They didn’t say that ironically.

As I continued to work from home, I watched the daily updates on the status on the pandemic.  Naturally, news networks broadcast what little information they knew.  We set our groceries aside for three days waiting for the COVID-19 virus to die on those surfaces.  Panic stricken viewers tweeted questions as we collectively watched them scroll across the bottom of that screen.

This included absurd questions like, “Is it safe to pick up take-out from Chinese restaurants?”  A collective “fuck you” from me to everyone who continued to call it the “China Virus”, understanding that it spreads fear and impacts Asian people.  You suck.

Continue reading “Natural curiosity” →

I started driving in Florida in my teens.  While my mom paid the cost of car insurance, I paid for most other expenses with that car.  For instance, I paid to register the car.  In order to renew the car’s registration, I jotted down the odometer reading (total mileage).  At the time, I simply followed instructions and didn’t obsess about why they wanted this information.  I simply rushed to get in and out of the DMV as quickly as possible.

Eventually, I learned why they noted the mileage.  They set the cost of renewing your registration to be proportional to the amount of wear-and-tear on the roads.  The more you ‘damaged’ the roads, the higher the cost to register your vehicle.  They calculated this fee from two numbers:  the weight of your vehicle and the distance you drove it.  The rationale?  It should cost more to register a 2000 Suburban driven 25k miles than a 2023 Miata driven 2k miles.

Continue reading “Taxes and representation” →