Day Three Hundred Fifty-Three

On this, the anniversary of the day when I cancelled all of my international travel for 2020, it seems fitting to highlight a small thing that has been living rent free in my mind for a while now. There are so many ways that COVID changed all of our lives. I stopped travelling, obviously, I see waaaaay too much of my children these days because they never leave the house, there are masks everywhere ... so much. The biggest thing, however, is the people who aren't with us anymore.

I can name at least five people who were taken from us because of COVID. While none of them are people that I was super close to, it still really sucks that nearly every person I know can tell the story of someone lost to them. It didn't have to be this way and we all know it.

But there's one of those people who has accidentally taught me a very important life lesson. For what it's worth, it's someone I haven't spoken to since high school. We were friends-ish way back then, but about 13 seconds after he sent me a Facebook friends request 10 years ago, I knew we wouldn't be friends-ish as adults. In high school he was lazy. He was perfectly capable of getting good grades, but he often cheated off me anyway, especially in Spanish class. His family was stupid wealthy and he seemed to think that would all just magically pass to him, so why do any actual work? That was his philosophy.

And he was right. He went from spoiled high school kid to adult who had everything handed to him.

So, basically, he never really grew up. There was a lot of strip club action in his daily life, he owned an excessive number of expensive cars, and he collected guns by the dozens. Literally, dozens. Totally not my people, but it takes all kinds of people, so whatever.

He passed away from complications related to COVID a few months ago.

About a month before he became sick and the worst came to be, he was on Facebook at least long enough to change his profile photo. To an image that says, "I pooped today!"

His only family was his parents who are very definitely not social media savvy, so his Facebook account is still active and basically frozen in time. With that profile photo. Forever.

There's a lesson in there and I've definitely learned it.

Day Three Hundred Fifty-Two

If there is one thing that Mila will take away from this whole global lockdown, it's some serious development of her problem solving skills. The kid is clever, y'all.

We had to drive out of town for the dance competition thing last week. While it was a short there and back sort of thing, I still respected Our Very Important Road Trip Rules. Those rules require that I supply a giant bag of gummy candy for snacking on while we drive.

And, thus, there is a three-pound bag of gummy bears in my house. We weren't gone long enough for the girls, and by "girls" I mean Mila, to eat them all, so they came back home and were stashed in the pantry. They were safe and sound on the top shelf. That was very purposeful - I think I'm going to surprise the girls with a quick half-day excursion to somewhere (literally anywhere - we need to get out, even if it's just to hike somewhere further from home) in the next few weeks, so we can re-use that bag then.

Mila found the bag and managed to get it down. I don't know how, but I'm sure it involved risking her life in some ridiculous way. She's oblivious like that.

And so I grabbed the bag and took it up to my office for safe keeping. I really don't need the kid to lock herself in the pantry and inhale 4000 grams of sugar. She will, you know. But with the gummies in my office, her access is severely limited. I can see them. There are SAFE.

It took Mila four hours to solve that equation. She realized I had taken them and stashed them more out of her reach, and somewhere where I could quickly yell at her if she touched them. And then she figured out that if she waited until I was talking - and thus participating in a meeting - she could walk right in and help herself.

I can't yell at her if I'm talking in a meeting.

She knows it.

She literally pranced in and helped herself to a handful of gummy bears three times in two hours. She didn't take the whole bag because then I would text Alexis to rip from her paws and hide it somewhere extra good. But if she takes a handful, I have to remember to hide it elsewhere when I have a break between meetings. I'm not going to do that because I have meetings wall-to-wall most days.

She completely figured out the whole puzzle.

Mila is an evil little genius.

Day Three Hundred Fifty-One

The topic of unpaid internships has been coming up a lot lately mostly because THEY ARE DUMB. Nobody should ever be asked to work for free. Period. But, you know, there are paid internships that are ... interesting.

I did one of those. In fact, I sort of regret one of those, though the learning experience was PHENOMENAL.

Disney World. I worked at Disney World as part of a college internship. I had the incredible opportunity to attend Disney University to get a honorary Ducktorette Degree in Human Resource Management. Seriously, it was a great learning opportunity.

The cost, and there is always a cost, was that I had to work in a retail job. I worked at Mickey's Character Shop (it's now World of Disney). I was guaranteed 30 hours per week, which is almost exactly what I was scheduled for. And my pay? It was $5.35 per hour. So I basically made $150 per week.

Buuuuut ... there was the matter of housing. That particular internship program included housing at a complex with the other 900 people doing the same program. We were assigned six people per apartment and each paid $65 per week for rent. Which, that's a pretty solid deal. Rent for a 3-bedroom apartment for under $1600 in Orlando? That's crazy! But it was Disney paying us and then us giving them the money back, so ... huh? If you math it just right, you realize we were actually getting paid $3.18 per hour. There was the hope that we'd get scheduled for more than 30 hours, which was a huge boon, but we were still sitting there making $100 per week.

I had a car payment and car insurance at the time. A person has to be able to get around, y'know? My car payment at the time was $165 per month, which was a great payment for a lowly college student. Insurance took up most of the rest of what I made. I ate a lot of ramen and cereal is what I'm saying.

And then came a few of life's inconveniences. First the tires on my car went bad and had to be replaced. That major expense went right on a credit card because what else was I going to do? And then one of my friendly neighbors hit my car while backing out of their space and didn't leave a note. It was more damage than you'd expect - I couldn't open the car door. So, I had to get that fixed.

I paid for it with a credit card.

And then came the big kicker. I got the call that my mom wasn't going to make it much longer. She had breast cancer and was in her final days, so I had to fly home. The ticket was $2000, even after the bereavement discount. I was there for a week, not making any money since of course I didn't have paid vacation, which means I got set waaaaaaaay back.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if I'm still paying on all the credit card debt that came from an internship at Disney World.

Which, DISNEY WORLD. I signed up for near financial ruin because DISNEY WORLD couldn't pay a living wage for an internship. ::blink::blink::

FWIW, the people who worked the same job but not through the internship, they also didn't make enough. They were paid around $10 per hour, which is still very so not a livable wage, but that's a whole other topic for another day.

Freakin Disney World doesn't pay enough for people to survive.