machine wash cold

I am enrolled in a course that is taught by a man in perfectly-pressed pants and starched white shirts and powerless pastel ties whose speech and taint-less style choices speak to his belief that each new and wondrous discovery experienced by a child can be whittled down to a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure result, the Times New Roman description in a teeny tiny box. And each teeny tiny box is attached to a straight and unwavering line. And that straight and unwavering line leads to one of two asphyxiating, fixed lifestyles: an impoverished or a “happy” . These polarized existences are determined only by the decimal points and dollar signs attached to your name.

and, he says, a person needs money to succeed, a fat wallet to be happy. and I would feel sorry for him for thinking so if Earth wasn’t fueled by paychecks, wasn’t balanced on a stack of newly-minted coins, wasn’t hanging from a string double-knotted to the handle of a lock box at First National, wasn’t so bent up about something that is supposedly so invaluable yet tears in two like nothing if it rides through the rinse cycle. So often forgotten in the pocket of your perfectly-pressed pants or starched white shirt.

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