No such luck.

Last week I took our beloved five year old on her first daddy-daughter-double-date with a new friend she made from riding the bus. We dads did our best to not kill ourselves as we shook off the rust on our skates while we simultaneously tried to teach our kiddos how to not kill themselves also. The fear of falling that I have at thirty five as a man with a full time job, wife, and child surprises even me. While years ago joining the mosh-pit at shows was deemed reserved for only the most inspired of moments, falling off my wheels onto slick concrete littered with multi-colored-disco-ball reflections, seasoned speed-racers, and other bumbling parents with their first-timers raised my fear of getting injured to a whole new level. But we survived and ended our night with a jaunt to Red Robin. Burgers, manufactured Americana wall-bling, and photo-time with a plastic Lady Liberty was a nice end to a first of many Dx4 nights to come.  I arrived at the car to find someone in the parking lot had noticeably hit my car, smashing the tail light and severely denting the bumper. Fucking great. Fighting my learned helplessness, I checked the wind-shield, hoping for an apology note with contact info. No such luck.

Last Monday we watched two candidates for President of the Unites States each make a semblance of a case for why they're the better candidate. I watched in disbelief at how the more polarizing candidate claimed superior intelligence because he's managed to pay virtually zero federal taxes while building a multi-national, multi-million dollar company. This supposed champion of the working class, the guy who's saying 'everything that everyone is thinking,' admitted on the most watched presidential debate of all time that he's proud he doesn't pay into the system that his primary constituency of voters feel they're being screwed by. He's exempt, because he's 'smarter.' This disconnect is unfathomable, yet here we are. I'm no economist, no insider, no business-man at all, but from what I gather by steadily watching the sources that be, in order to run a business that has verified hundreds of millions of dollars, you must be a bit inclined toward sociopathy. Sociopathy is generally linked to a lack of empathy for the feelings or needs of others, which seems integral to most stories of wild and sustained success in Capitalism. On occasion my dad likes to remind us of the Ray Kroc quote: "If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth."  The idea that a 'good business person' should naturally be a leader of the free-world just seems like faulty nuts-and-bolts logic; a bad idea on principle because the owner's bottom line will always be his or her bottom line. In regard to Trump, as Rachel Martin's story, The Making of Clinton and Trump, tells it: "His father would tell his sons you're killers and you're kings and they were supposed to rise up in life as killers and kings and nothing was quite good enough." How could we expect compassion for those less fortunate after seventy years of living in the opposite direction?

Earlier in the year I did a series on my band's record, Mere Mortals, the opening track on the record is called 'Capsized.' Inspired by the photo of the Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, who washed ashore in Turkey, the song explores the idea of luck and privilege to be born to whom, in what time, and where I've been born. A line that still circulates in my head is: "I could've been raised knowing nothing but war, trafficked in a world we abhor..." To think, to imagine, as documentaries have shown me, that there are still people who prosper from enslaving and selling human beings to other human beings. I can only wonder about the desperation it must take to treat others so horribly.
The skeptic and optimist in me hopes that somehow they're doing this against their will, that somehow their survival instinct has been so triggered that they know-not-what-they-do. (Or is it simply biology? Are some people just more comfortable thinking of their own welfare over others'? I'll let you know what Andrew Solomon says about the criminal mind in Far From The Tree when I get to that chapter.)

We waited on making the insurance claim for the smashed tail-light and bumper, knowing that we were a month behind on payment. The day after the incident, I paid what I owed, making sure we were back on track. I consulted multiple friends about how they'd deal with the claim, admitting that detail - that we were behind a payment and may not have been insured when the H & R happened. We were encouraged to embrace the white lie by all who heard our story, fudge the timeline a hair, concede that the insurance company was sort of an enemy that deserved to pay out once in a while, that we deserved the break. A week and a half passed. Friday I made the claim. My wife and I had decided that to tell anything but the truth felt yucky. I was transferred a few times, eventually told the claim was filed and to await a claim-rep's call. Surely enough, he looked at the timeline, the date of the incident, and caught the red flag. Our insurance was suspended at the time of the smashing and our claim was denied. On the phone I managed not to say I considered lying, or express how ridiculously angry I was. I thought of Forrest Gump on his run, and said to the rep: "I guess this is why the phrase 'Shit happens' exists" and cordially said 'goodbye.' What case can I make when I know I was in the wrong? I'm sure there are fights I could try to fight, and I'm not telling you this for that sort of advice. I was wrong, but still stood for what is right by being truthful, right?

I'm not big on pride, not when I can regularly see my friend Kenny's photos of refugees lost at sea. So we'll pay into the system, and we'll pay to make our car pretty again, and we'll swallow our pride, and be thankful we're inclined to try and do right, even if it doesn't always feel right.

(image stolen from here.)