the kids...(attempt no. 1)

The kids, they all look up to me.

I noticed this happening around the time I turned 33. Why then, I have no clue. But I was an editor at a small-town newspaper, had a staff of three and a bunch of stringers. They were all younger than me. The closest in age was 26. He was a good guy. Name of Jerome. He ended up being the second-most successful reporter that I ever hired. Well, third best if you include Ed, the guy I hired in college.

The kids around me today, they laugh when I talk about newspapers. The good times, I refer to them as. Hell, I hated just about every other year then. Now, I’d give everything for it to be like that again.

“You actually printed stuff out. On paper?” they say in unison on those cold nights when my stories are all we have to get through it without fights breaking out or someone crying.

I’m 53 years old. And I feel every, single one of them right now in this house. It’s right on the beach. Moved into it back in 2010. The last year of normalcy I call it. They call it the year before the shit.

Back then, the United States was a crumbling empire. Today, just 13 years later, it doesn’t exist anymore. First, the money went bad. Then, the food went bye-bye. Lastly, the bombs starting falling and the guns started shooting. I thought I was going to move to New Orleans in 2011. Get a job washing dishes and writing crap on the side. I was two months from my final two weeks at work. I’d been in town setting up things for a week before, during and after my 40th birthday.

That was a great week.

I got really drunk with my friends. It turned out to be for the last time.

I fucked a redheaded stripper. Never thought that would happen. She actually gave me herpes. Never thought that would happen either.

I also fell in love for the last time.

When I drove my blue Hyundai Accent the 1,300 or so miles back home after a great week, I never figured I’d still be in this wood panel-filled house for the rest of my life.

Funny how things happen, ain’t it?

About a week after getting to North Carolina, I started selling off all of my possessions. The economy had been showing signs of teetering on the edge for years, and I was finally starting to take notice. Get out of debt and just survive became my mantra. I think the day I watched the movie “Collapse” on my laptop was the moment I decided to do something about my impending doom.

I sold my video game collection. Got top dollar from a guy in California for it. I sold my baseball cards. Not what I ever expected to get for them, but they were just dead weight to me. I found someone to take all a bunch of old band T-shirts as well.

Finally, on May 14th, 2011, I cashed out my 401k. I sent the entire amount to credit card companies and was completed bad-debt free for the first time since I was 20 years old and my mom paid off my one credit card that had an overdue balance of $348 dollars. Bad move mom. Didn’t learn anything from it.

Three days later, a war broke out in Central America. Someone invaded someone. The details never became fully clear. Some say it was our own troops, dressed like another country’s. Just trying to stir up shit to get a war started.

This caused a panic. Food became scarce. Gas almost non-existent. I started working from home just because I couldn’t drive the 41 miles in to the office. It was actually kind of nice for a little while.

I wrote when I wasn’t laying out sections. I scavenged water and lots of canned food every time I could. “Stockpiling like a madman,” the lady at the newly dubbed $10 store would say to me.

After three days of “war” the news stopped coming from Central America.

Three days later, a nuke went off in Israel.

Four days later, a nuke went off in Milwaukee.

Two more days and one went off in Boston, Cleveland and Moscow. Then Paris. Then Berlin. Then Bagdad. Then somewhere in New Mexico. Then Hong Kong.

The next day, nothing.

Then the news networks all went down.

Then cable.

Then the phones.

Soon, the folks with guns were running the place.

Soon, no one cared a massive hurricane hit the Atlantic Coast. Then another. And still another. The U.S. was fucked. I was fucked. I took in six people -- all friends from up north. They thought my place would be safe from the battles going on. They were right. For all of three weeks.

(i liked the beginning thought here. but hated almost everything after it. i had a great beginning, then i lost it in my head while trying to go from my car to the computer. by then, it had morphed into this. i think, for the rest of the week (ha!) i will try to write this same story, over and over again. until it goes somewhere better).