It’s 1:45 on a Monday afternoon as I write this.
School is still in session (for a few more days, at least), and it’s not a holiday of any kind.
Yet, for some reason, there are at least 10 people out in my next-door neighbors’ backyard, getting drunk and swimming in the pool.
I know some of these people. They’re my neighbor’s sons, who are in their early to mid-twenties.
They’re not students (so you can’t explain their free time during the day as a well-deserved break between semesters at college).
Supposedly, they work full-time, but they seem to be home all day, every day—and I should know; I myself am generally home all day, every day. The difference is that I’m working at least 16 of those daily hours.
My question is this: What are they doing drinking and playing in the pool (and, yes, making it very difficult for me to work, between the constant crash of beer bottles and the frequent squeals of their prostitutes—um . . . I mean, “female companions”) in the middle of a random Monday?
I have to say, I notice this phenomenon a lot—more and more each year since I started working from home back in 2005. I’d blow it off, assuming that it’s all a question of business practices evolving, that more people are (like me) working from home. But here’s the thing: Of all the people I’ve ever known, I only know ONE other person who works from home like I do.
So, who are all these people who are free to do a whole lot of nothing during the day (and at night—as an insomniac, I get the joy of seeing it ALL)?
Why does no one work anymore? And how do they all seem to have money (to buy beer and hookers), while I work myself half to death and can’t even afford to buy groceries some weeks?
Something is off here. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it one bit.
And yes, I know I sound like the crotchety old man shooing the rambunctious kids out of my driveway, but seriously. Who are these people and why do they all have this mountain of free time (and free money), when I have absolutely none of either?
I beg you to tell me what’s going on—and how I can get in on the action.
