Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Sociology class took an unsual turn the other day - Mr. Rice asked each student to write a brief story about a day in the life of a particular socioeconomic class. Joy! I love to scribble!

MEET HAROLD . . .

. . . a lower middle class drine with an unremarkable past and uncertain future. Harold lives with his wife and 2.3 children in a quaint suburban condominium. Every morning, he wakes up, gulps down several cups of coffee (despite his doctor's warnings about developing ulcers) and commutes 45 minuts into the city for a day of hard work.

Since his latest promotion, Harold has his very own cuibicle. The requisite motivational statements and bland family portraits decorate his workspace. Harold sits down in his ergonomic desk chair and sighs with simple contentment; he is, at last, master of all he surveys.

Harold spends his morning tackling the imperative quandry of glazed versus jelly donuts before shifting into thirteen dynamic rounds of computerized black-jack. Before he knows it, it's time for lunch. How the day flies! After a meal of refined flour, sodium, and saturated fat, Harold returns to his desk. There, he cranks-out the modicum of spreadsheets and emails his position requires, and gossips with coworkers until quitting time.

Upon arriving home, Harold greets his wife in the kitchen as she prepares frozen potato portions and a package of Hamburger Helper. His children, lost to the allure of X-box, remain in the living-room, oblivious to their father's return. Dinner is served on plastic flatware, and without conversation or ceremony. While his wife clears the table, Harold retreats to the sanctity of the master bedroom and ambivalently watches sitcoms to numb his mounting sense of self-doubt and dissatisfaction. Soem hours later, Harold's fatuige outweighs the captivating antics of "Fraiser", and he shuts his eyes.

shiny objects