My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

Spent two months getting the store ready to open, and now we are another two months in business. I sat out front of the store this afternoon watching traffic drive by and thought how lucky I was not to be moving furniture. I’ll hump furniture up stairs tomorrow (one bedroom across town), but it’s nice to know something else is building to make me money.

Getting very close to 40 makes me realize management has its purpose. The trick is having something to manage by the time 40 hits. A good friend told me how hard it is to be married with kids in this area. It takes a ton of money. The neighbor drives a Hummer with “fuelish” on the license plate. They drive the Hummer to the airport and fly to Squaw Valley for a ski weekend. My friend’s kids stay home and fingerpaint in the backyard.

The mixed message of American culture is to pursue freedom, and to be a success. We work for financial success with the belief it buys freedom. That’s a big gamble. Only a few get to own a railroad and bill the government. I’m working 7 days a week so I can afford to buy scratch tickets. The only hope is no hope at all, so what’s the point of striving for success?

Open a junk shop instead. A new store that sells old stuff. Think of it as a new vintage store. Put an old phone on the sign. People will get it. You will not get rich, but the hope someday you will find a Picasso rolled up and stuffed into a Stradivarius is viable an option as anything else. Except dentistry. Become a dentist. Become a banker. Then you can be an early adopter of the latest electronics and vacation on distant shores without worrying about making rent. You own, after all.

But the property tax and the mortgage and the student loan and orthopedic surgeon and vanity plates and all that…you cut the vacation short.

Instead I chose a different path. Already taking out the garbage and vacuuming the showroom rug is a tiresome chore. Sometimes things in life are easy, but rarely.

My friend was confiding in me at a karaoke bar where they sell you a scratch ticket, a beer and a shot for 5 bucks. We stared as the KJ danced behind a singer. She was 40ish. Looked 3 months pregnant, more or less. She wasn’t.

“If they’re gonna act like they’re dancing naked, I’m gonna look. That’s my policy,” he told me. It’s nice to be drunk and have philosophies that make sense, if only for a short time.