PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
With the fervent hope that that wish may be better realized than last year’s similar one.
2022 exits as it entered, with many of us still exiled and isolated in our homes. The streets and shops are empty. Merchants pray for trade, and only the likes of FedEx and Door-Dash delivery drivers, courting sickness and death, keep the economy limping along.
Things will improve. Here’s a happy helping of confidence, and an optimistic quote from the Little Engine, who says, “I know we can! I know we can!”
Let’s make it a great year, fellow Friday Fictioneers.
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If you’d like to join the fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site, and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100-word story.
Archon's Den 
I like the optimism and positive outlook.
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Thanx! We’ll need it. 😀 😀
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I wonder if things will ever be back to normal. People are out and about, traveling, shopping, dining out…. but it seems as if half the previous work force is missing. What’s up with that? Where did they go!
🥴
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Many employees, especially the young, in food/services industries, worked for shitty bosses, worse customers, and starvation wages – because they had a job and it was too much stress to search for another. When they got let go, many of them were forced to get other employment, and don’t want to go back to the rat and his race.
Off and on for ten years, the grandson and his wife fell back to being baristas at Starbucks. When scheduled hours dropped, he first worked at a luncheon meat packer, and later was employed by a renovator. He missed a day because of a minor traffic accident – and the boss gave him a $1.50/hr raise when he returned.
She got a job as a receptionist for a veterinarian, sitting all day instead of standing, at $1/hr. more and close enough to walk to work. Like many others…. they ain’t goin’ back. 😛
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I understand that, but still. The staffing shortage is insane up here. Many small businesses have closed in my area due to lack of workers. Service industries have always been low pay for hard work. What changed?
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People have been forced to realize that, I’m mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!
Expectations have been lowered. They’re sharing apartments with friends, or moving back in with parents, cutting down or out with cigarettes, booze, even drugs, parties, vacation trips, learning to live with less, so that many of them find that they don’t have to work for assholes – at least for a while. Recovery to “normal” will take a while. 😕
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It’s a wonderful life (sometimes), Archon. Another year and the war rages on, somewhere.
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Hope for the best, but don’t be surprised at the worst. 😳
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Hey, let’s just get through the next few weeks, okay? If I survive that, THEN we’ll work on a whole year. 😉
Yes, I’ll happily join you in wishes for a better 2023. After all, we MUST have a good 2023, because at least we won’t have a presidential election hanging over our heads. Just simple little problems, like a teetering economy, a war in Eastern Europe, another brewing in the Middle East (if not 2 or 3), and the possibility of ANOTHER version of the pandemic. Little problems, you know – easy as pie! 😀
Happy New Year to you, yours, and all your bloggie flock!
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That’s what I like about you, you’re always so cheerful and optimistic. You call a spade, a f**king shovel. 😉 😀
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You know, I was going to type that last bit of mine as “Easy as cake”, but then realised that not EVERYBODY is as big a sci-fi movie geek as I am, and you might not get the “2010” reference.
And yes, when you’ve dug as many holes as I have. literal and figurative, all by hand, you tend to refer to ANY digging tool as a “f**king shovel”, to quote your poetic phrasing. That’s why I love your blog – the oh-so flowery prose. :p 😀
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It’s been a long time – with a short memory – since I’ve seen that movie. I don’t recall the reference. 😳
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One of the Russian Cosmonauts, who buddies up with John Lithgow, keeps trying American euphemisms like “piece of pie” and “easy as cake” – Yogi Berra-style takes on “piece of cake” and “easy as pie”. And I rattled that all off the top of my head. TOLD you I was too big of a sci-fi geek! (We got a free trial of Disney+, and I got to see “The Black Hole” for the umpteenth time. I LOVE that movie! See? Geeking out again! 😀 )
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Thank you A.D. Wishing you Optimism, step by step and a few smiles.
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And thank you for your kind words. 😀 😀
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I loved that story, and so did my children and then their children. The lIttle Engine that Could!
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I’m not usually much of a rah-rah guy, but a bit of optimism can be contagious, and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Little Engine That Could must be very shy, or very busy. I couldn’t find a picture of him. I had to settle for one of his Can-Do cousin, Thomas the Tank Engine. 😀 😀
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This is the one I remember:https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FKPRTA6%2Fthe-little-engine-that-could-KPRTA6.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alamy.com%2Fstock-image-the-little-engine-that-could-168939742.html&tbnid=w4HCx4QtW87fpM&vet=12ahUKEwjgwuTW0KL8AhUfiHIEHVjXAuwQMygmegUIARDqBA..i&docid=82plEqTkAMYzWM&w=1300&h=843&q=The%20Little%20Engine%20That%20Could&ved=2ahUKEwjgwuTW0KL8AhUfiHIEHVjXAuwQMygmegUIARDqBA
Well, that turned out differently than I hoped. I just googled the title, and found lots and lots of pictures of book covers, but none that would allow me to copyu/paste.
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Indeed, Archon. I raise a glass in toast, Cheers!
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We’ve reached an age when our glass holds Metamucil, but we’re still here to raise it. 😉 Cheers! 😀 😀
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🙂
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