Trust Never

I was used to using my Fitbit watch to pay for stuff. I'd come up to the McDonald's drive thru and say, "I'm going to use my watch to pay," and at first it confused them, but with more experience and training they saw me coming and had the apparatus ready to hold out the window so I could wave my watch near it and pay.

Then Google bought Fitbit, as corporations are wont to do. I already knew the future — hadn't I lived through it when Yahoo bought MusicMatch, by far the best CD-ripping software and music identification service. The Yahoo version was, to put it nicely, shit in a blender, and that pretty much ended ripping my own CDs. The end of an era. Before that bit of corporate chicanery I'd buy a CD so everybody was getting paid, then I'd rip it and never play it on a CD player, only on my iPod Nano while I walked or ran or just lived.

Naturally, Apple stopped supporting the Nano and now, quite against my desires, I have to use my

phone

to play back music and audiobooks. I have a trillion bytes of ripped CDs on my computer and no convenient way to download any of it and play it. Alexa is too stupid to find the music I actually own, so I can only get half-assed selections from Amazon Music. I have to say it four or five times: "Alexa, play songs by Carrie Rodrigues," before Alexa stops saying that she couldn't find "that track" and just plays the music.

Sure enough, Google announced it would stop supporting the Fitbit Wallet and I would have to switch over to Google Wallet. Only they added all kinds of hurdles because all our credit cards are linked to my wife's mobile number and she's the only one who can verify our financial information.

So I'm paying for things with physical plastic again, because I can't get Google Wallet to work right. Next thing you know, we'll be back to putting the credit card into a roller machine and making an imprint of the card's information. Except that the new generation of cards doesn't

have

raised numbers so you

can't

record it under that roller.

I'm not a luddite. I like many of the innovations that come along. I'm an early adopter, or I used to be. But time after time, I adopted early and then somebody else set the industry standard — usually worse than what I already had — but after that the system I was using became obsolete. I've got about fifty thousand dollars-worth of electronic doorstops that I paid a lot for and then the company that supported it went bankrupt or changed over to requiring Apple or Windows or Android compatibility and my expensive equipment became as useful as a cinderblock.

My Fitbit is still keeping track of my steps ... for now. My old analog watches are coming out of storage and going back on my wrist. I don't bother with a lot of apps I used to use faithfully. I refuse to

ever

use the app at McDonald's or any other restaurant. Why do they need me to use the app when I can drive up, place my order, and be on my way?

That's who I have become. It's easier not even trying something new, because I'll get offloaded soon enough. No use

counting

on anything because nothing is reliable. And when I say "anything" and "nothing," you can include "anybody" and "nobody" in that statement. I'm an open-hearted guy. I used to believe in other people's promises and I used to trust their vows of love or friendship. Now I know that it's only a matter of time till they shit all over me and then insist that it doesn't smell and it'll wash right off. Or they were "just kidding."

The irony — in my view, anyway — is that I've always been a reliable guy. Mom would say, "Start your homework

now,"

and I'd say, "One minute," and then

one minute later,

I would start doing my homework. "Unload the dishwasher," and in ten minutes it was unloaded with all the dishes put exactly where they belonged.

It wasn't some great moral decision and it took no particular effort. I just listened to what my parents and teachers said, and later my bosses, and did my best to fulfil their requests at once or at least by the deadline. So far they haven't asked me to do anything beyond my reach and they've never had any reason to accuse me of slacking.

If you're a manufacturer and you make something that's

really

reliable, something that never fails, you'll be out of business in a few years. Why? Because somebody else is going to make the same thing, only a little worse and selling a little cheaper, and

they'll

scoop up the people who haven't already bought yours. And your happy customers are

never

going to have to replace your product because

it doesn't wear out.

You made it too well. To make a profit, you have to charge more money than the companies that make a shittier version. And everybody who owns one, doesn't need to replace it

ever.

You've got to build obsolescence into your product. There has to be a new, improved version. That's just good business.

But that's not how I was raised. You never make

anything

that isn't the best you know how. You're making cookies, say, and you decide to leave out the salt. The cookies taste insipid, inedible. So

why

did you leave out the salt? So that after they throw up, people will still be hungry? Or do you sell antacids in your spare time? Put in the damn salt, every time.

All my life I've been planning to be a husband. Being a committed heterosexual, I've been expecting to achieve husband status with the cooperation of a female human. I have known many people in that category and liked most of them. In high school I took several girls on dates, but I never hit it off with anybody. Half the time, I just couldn't imagine spending another half hour with them, let alone the rest of my life. The other half, for some reason they felt that way about me.

In college, I didn't drive a car. We have an okay bus system and I used it. I wasn't crusading against carbon emissions — I emit carbon dioxide with every breath. I just thought it was more convenient to have somebody else drive me to school.

As for women, I went on walking dates, which meant mostly taking girls to campus events. They weren't much impressed by my small-spender ethic.

There were a few that I had some romantic feeling for, but nothing powerful enough to outlast being apart for the summer. I got some second-base action, but I never even tried for third base or home plate, because the stupidest way to choose a wife was to wait and see which one got knocked up.

Why in the heck are you reading about

me?

I'm in my early thirties, I've got a darn good job — an elementary school counselor, a job that didn't exist when

I

was in grade school — and, being both single and a whiz at the stock market, I have built up a formidable portfolio, and therefore a robust savings account. Enough to pay cash for a couple of Ferraris? That's the equivalent of starting a fire and burning the money. The KIA Tucson I drive today has more cargo space than a Ferrari anyway. I mean, why throw money away on amazing cars, when I might need the down payment for a house someday?

So I have a lot of money, for a guy my age who works in the public schools, and I've always invested it well so I earn more in interest and dividends every year than I make from my job. But I don't show off my money because all the things that prove you have money are a

waste

of money, so all you

really

prove with your expensive stuff is that you're an idiot who doesn't know how to hold on to a fortune.

That's why girls can't see past my perfectly ordinary looks, my trim but not spectacular body, my six-one height which isn't really all that tall. I don't have any markers that would make women think that flirting with me had a chance of being a good investment of their charms. All those fine young elementary school teachers knew me as the guy who occasionally took the more challenging kids off their hands for an hour at a time. But they didn't see me as a potential mate. They were all looking for doctors or lawyers or dentists to marry. I've never been even a blip on their radar.

Did this make me sad?

Sometimes. Come on, nobody likes rejection. But they weren't even

rejecting

me, they simply didn't

notice

me.

It was already like that in high school. I wasn't a nerd. Obvious nerds look like they might become a billionaire by inventing some kind of app or hardware or missile defense system. But me, all I did was get

B

s and

A

s, I wasn't in the running for valedictorian, my high school counselors advised me not to bother applying to any famous schools, the local community college was just starting to give out bachelor's degrees after years as a junior college, so why not stay at home, save money on tuition and housing, and go to school locally?

They could have saved time by saying, as soon as I walked in their office, "Stop. You're nothing. Nobody knows you, nobody likes you, nobody cares about you. You have no future, you have no abilities, so why don't you jump into the local toilet of higher education and pull down on the flush lever?"

Mom and Dad believed in me. They offered to pay for me to apply to up to ten colleges, and to help me with tuition and housing and meals if I went out of state to school. But I had a pretty good idea of what my dad took home from his job as an actuary with the insurance company that occupies the tallest building in town, and yes, that's a well-paid job, but it's not Stanford-tuition-level or even William-and-Mary-level or Washington-and-Lee- or Virginia-Military-Institute-level income. If by some twist of fate I got accepted, they'd go into debt to make sure I had a good start in life, and they'd end up without any retirement.

Worse yet, I've got three younger sibs — Vaclav, Hans, and Liberacion. What are

they

going to do for tuition and room and board when

they

want to go to college? It'll be hard enough for them with their pointless international names — why was I given "Steve" when they sound Czech, German, or Latin American? Life isn't fair, obviously, but if our folks have nothing left to help

them

get a good start in college, aren't they going to hate

me

for going to VMI? (Especially since there's nothing about me that says "officer material." But they call it a "liberal arts college" so you don't have to intend to become an officer in the Virginia militia of 1863 in order to go there.)

I enrolled in the community college and I had some first-rate profs because none of them had any incentive to publish, so they actually concentrated on teaching. I did well on the GRE and I got into a master's program in a school near Seattle and presto, this mediocre sociology major became a certified school counselor.

I don't give career advice to elementary school students. Instead I try to give students with challenging home lives or challenging behavioral issues the coping mechanisms that might —

might

— actually help them do better in school and get along better with adults and with other kids.

The rest of my class in that school for counselors was female, most of them smarter than me and all of them way prettier, and by then I had such an investment portfolio, funded by a hundred percent of my part-time job income when I was mooching off my parents and going to community college. I did my own stock market stuff, and I was already in a position where I could live on my earnings from stocks and bonds without dipping into my salary

or

my capital. I was, in a word, a moderate success in the stock market, but not one of my fellow grad students thought I was

anything.

I picked a fellow student and asked her out. She declined. And apparently they all talked to each other, because I could see that in refusing a date with me, she spoke for all the others, too.

When I worked up the courage to ask one of the women what was wrong with me, she said, "Nothing. Except you've made it clear that you hate the Puget Sound climate and you can't wait to get back East. All of the rest of us are from Washington state, so either we grew up in this area or we lived in the desert of southeastern Washington, so this feels like heaven."

To me it was a watery hell, but I didn't really believe that refusing to date me had anything to do with my intention to live and work in the East. I think it had to do with the fact that as far as they knew, I had no more earning potential than they did, so why marry somebody who isn't better off than you are? If I'd looked like a Hemsworth or a Tatum, then sure, my earning potential wouldn't disqualify me. But I don't.

So if I can't get by on looks, maybe on smarts? You can't do what I did and be stupid, you just can't. I don't brag about it — except here, but that's between you and me. My dad said, "If you tell somebody about your portfolio and your dividends, maybe you'll get more respect."

"First, Dad," I said, "they'll assume I'm lying."

"Why would they assume that?"

"Because I work at an elementary school."

"So quit your —"

"If I quit my job and live on my dividends, Dad, how will I meet anybody to tell about it?"

It's not as if Dad had any ideas. He was an employee, with an employee's attitude — do your job to the satisfaction of management, and you'll get raises and retire with a good income and quite a bit of money. He was respected by his peers. And he had Mom, who was as frugal and hard-working as he was.

Frugal, but not as tight-lipped. So as she let slip one time, talking to Libby, "Your father and I expect to live to a hundred, but even if we spend a lot on a good assisted living facility, there'll still be a couple of million left for each of you kids."

Libby told me this and said, "Should I tell the others?"

"Will it make them happier? Or lazier?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said.

"Me neither. Why did you pick

me

to tell?"

"Mom said that it would be divided among the three of us youngers, because you already had more than that in your portfolio."

I shrugged. "I don't know how she knows that, but it's true."

"And you still live rent-free at home?"

"I've offered to pay rent, but they just laugh."

"Heck, Steve,

I'll

date you. I'm as money-hungry as the next girl."

"I'm your brother, by the way."

"You're twelve years older than me," she said. "You're more like my uncle."

"Well,

that

wouldn't be incest, then."

She laughed and shoved me and I didn't look at her as a woman even then. To me she was still the last of Mom's babies. I had changed her diaper more than once, back when she was just a noisy little shit-making machine. I didn't need an incest tabu to keep her off-limits for life.

"Tell them," I said. "It won't give them extra money

now

, so they'll still need to have gainful employment."

I don't know whether she told them or not. I didn't see anybody changing their lifestyles, so probably she didn't tell them. And I didn't care either way.

I'm writing about the dullest life ever lived — mine. My erotic dreams were even boring. Missionary position all way way. I knew enough about porn to recognize that this was

not

the only option, but in my dreams, I apparently had a strong predilection for missionary. I also didn't watch porn after the first year, because the point of porn is to masturbate, and I had long since learned that the satisfaction of ejaculation lasted less time than it took the semen to dry. That would be like looking forward to breakfast with famished eagerness, and then eating one Cheerio and pushing back from the table, groaning and loosening my belt.

What did I look forward to? Videogames? Waste of my time. Athletics? Like anybody would let me into a pickup game of anything. Movies? Yeah, I saw a few each year, but usually I was disappointed. My favorites were mostly oldies.

The Apartment

.

Cast Away. The Odd Couple, You've Got Mail.

With old-fashioned tastes like mine, I couldn't even imagine inviting a woman over for movie night.

What did I look forward to?

Nothing.

Was this clinical depression?

I thought of that and went to see a psychiatrist. He said it didn't sound like depression but he gave me a couple of prescriptions for anti-depressants and I took them and they did nothing. No benefits, no side effects, just ... nothing. "So you're apparently not depressed," said the shrink, when I went back for my second and last visit. "Or you're so deeply depressed that the meds can't pull you up out of it."

"Which?" I asked.

"You're not depressed, Steve. You're just lonely."

"I'm with people all day at work."

"You're with elementary school kids," he said.

"I like them better than adults. They don't pretend to be better than they are."

Look, I was perfectly content with his diagnosis. I wasn't full of raging hormones. I wasn't bursting into tears at inappropriate moments. I never thought of suicide. I went to church because Mom and Dad did, but I was still this grown man who lived with his parents, so none of the girls smiled at me. But I didn't resent their lack of interest in me. I shared it.

In the weeks that followed, though, I kept coming back to the question the shrink asked me right at the end of that final session. "Well, Steve, you're not a kid, you're an adult. Who are

you

pretending to be?"

I laughed as if it had been a joke, and so did he. But by the time I was out in my aging but well-maintained Tucson, which I named "Me" for the irony of it — nobody else knew that that was what I called my car — I was thinking, over and over, "Okay, Steve, who

are

you pretending to be?"

Maybe that was a turning point. I tried to upgrade my life by running or walking a couple of miles a week. I got stronger and my pulse was at a healthy rate. And I read books and journals in my field — and even more not in my field.

I wondered about what I

should

have majored in at the community college. Journalism? Psych? Engineering? Creative writing? Whatever I thought about, I realized that I liked sociology better, statistics and all. Get a doctorate? And then what? I liked my job, working with children young enough that I might make some difference in their lives. With a doctorate, what could I do but become a prof at some community college somewhere? Third-graders, those were my favorite students. Didn't need a PhD to work with

them.

Over the summer after my third year of work, I ran in shorts and shoes in every weather, unless there was lightning. I was as tan as a brown leather couch and I not only had a trim waist and a tight butt, I also had the faintest hint of abs, the whole eight-pack, and I hadn't even tried for that. Maybe I had lost an unhealthy amount of fat — you need

some

fat to survive — but I had never felt better or looked better in my life (or so Mom told me), and as the summer was winding to a sweaty end, I was really looking forward to getting back to work.

I really cared about the kids. I liked them. I even liked the ones I hadn't met yet because even the ones who tried to be assholes were pretty bad at it, and so far I had been able to get through to all the self-appointed "hard cases." I was good at my job.

I was getting back to my tiny office — shelves, a desk, and three chairs — for a few hours a day, to look at the class assignments and see which kids had been placed as I recommended, and to work out my life-support lessons. I would see teachers and staff in the halls — I wasn't the only one eager to get back to work — and they knew me and nobody hated me because I never, never stepped on anybody's ego. They were the teachers, the front line. I was a medic, running forward when somebody was hurting. I could maybe save a few from getting swallowed and digested by the school system, but

they

were the ones fighting the battles. I treated them with that level of respect, and I also made their jobs a little easier. I wasn't anybody's enemy.