THE DISEMPLOYED

Somehow I Found a Good Job and I’m Terrified

It starts tomorrow if they don’t fire me before midnight

For the last four years, I’ve been kissing frogs. Big ones, fat ones, toady ones, slimy ones.

Last month, one of them turned into a Prince.

He’s scaring the beejesus out of me, with his shiny brunette manly locks and crushed velvet trousers.

I don’t want to get clingy but I find myself asking if he needs his feet anointed in oil. He looks at me funny.

I giggle.

I text him too often. I ask for pics, and I look for signs his skin is growing slightly green.

He’s not the greatest Prince, because he doesn’t come with health benefits, but I don’t think I can go on if he rides off on his white horse.

I found him on one of those platforms where you go, like a lady of the night, to trawl for cash. Where desperate men are out after dark looking for cheap gig workers, flashing $100 bills if you can edit, do graphics, or build a web page.

They flash another $20 if you can speak AI.

I swore I wouldn’t go back to that slave-trading online platform, but it was that or apply at Denny’s and ask meekly if they still provide complimentary meals.

Fifty-Something

I don’t have a peer group, so I hang out with 70-somethings.

They all think I’m an idiot, and the slightly older ones think I’m a double idiot because they have children in their fifties.

That’s not because I’ve done anything idiotic, it’s because when they were fifty-something they had zero appreciation they were able-bodied, pre-surgery balls of energy.

They were blissfully clueless that they’d ever get really old.

I’m watching closely, and the scariest part about getting older is being poor or alone, or both.

The thing about being rich is you automatically have friends, so the root problem is being poor. Unless you are a multi-millionaire, you are at risk of being poor in the US — and therefore alone — because as you age, sh*t gets super expensive.

A fixed income is a form of relentless inflation, which is why your grandma sent you $15 for your birthday.

I sent my niece $75 each for my three grand-nieces and grand-nephews, and that was the equivalent of $15 each.

I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.

In my fifties, I’m buying my dream Scooter, the Burgman 400, and driving off by myself for two months because I know exactly how doomed I am.

Sixty-Ish

When I turn 60, I’m going to begin taking my pension from the State of Arizona, assuming The Grand Canyon State hasn’t spontaneously combusted from the airport tarmac temperature hitting 165 degrees.

The money I’ll get represents 17 years as a state employee, and it will cover most of the cost of my monthly health insurance.

If God wills it, I will still have a seasonal job with the Prince, although my chances are 50–50 at this point because I’m so damn insecure trying to live through my fifties.

I know he senses my nervousness, like every horse I’ve ever ridden.

I’m planning to spend most of my sixties reminiscing on my cross-country trip and counting off the days until I cross the Medicare finish line, which inshallah will still exist because somehow AARP has murdered every last member of the GOP.

By then, of course — in the year 2031 — Medicare will cost $1000 a month and my whole pension will go toward it, but I will be grateful.

Does anyone else hear the sound of falling sand as this cliff erodes beneath my feet?

Seventy-Nothing

By the time I reach my 70s, everyone I now know will be dead or so ancient I’ll be feeding them baby food.

I’ll be spending my time taking care of old people, and wondering how to avoid the same fate, and I’ll be too old for an outlaw biker extravaganza, so I’ll probably steal someone’s Buick and take off for Branson by myself.

I shall be crotchety by day and reclusive by night, and I’ll still be writing because I hate caretaking and I’ll need to vent.

I’ll try to make friends with people in their fifties, even though I know they are idiots.

I’ll tolerate them because I’ll desperately need their help in a few years, and require moderate help now for a ride to the eye doctor or the orthopedic surgeon.

I’ll probably take up Pickelball, and hate myself for it.

Eighties — How Did I Get Here?

I’ll spend most of my time in church.

I’ll get rides from youngsters in their spry 60s, who are pretty stupid but I don’t talk much now so they can’t tell what I think.

I’ll go to funerals. I’ll wonder how I managed to get so fossilized, but that outlaw biker cross-country blowout will be a story I repeat over and over, and it will become boring even to me.

I’ll meet a guy in his 70s and consider dating him, but ultimately decide it’s not worth the hassle when the only upside is rides to the doctor. And I’m not senile yet so I know what’s in it for him — he can inherit what little wealth I’ve managed to save.

I’ll drink Ensure, not because it tastes good but because by then I am certain I’ll be done with making dinners.

For variety, I’ll put it in a bowl and call it soup.

I’ll whoop it up on Friday nights and eat a TV dinner.

I will officially change my middle name from Danger to Living Fossil.

This Job Is Making Me Old and I Haven’t Even Started

I guess this is why I don’t get good jobs, because they make me anxious.

I see my whole future slide downhill because I’m convinced this is as good as it gets.

Tomorrow will be here before I know it, and it’s almost 4 pm so I have to lie down and start wishing I were asleep, not being able to sleep, and then checking my phone to see if it’s dawn somewhere.

I won’t sleep tonight, so the best I can hope for is a power nap before dinner.

I’ll spend this sweaty night practicing gratitude because I still have my teeth and eyesight, but I keep both ears pricked for strange noises.

I’m waiting for the knock on my door, and the sound of croaking.

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Jean Campbell is based in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She has been writing on Medium for years and recently published her first novel, Down and Out on the Road South, with Wings ePress. She is serializing the first part of her second book, City of Lies, on Substack.