5
" I’m trying to help,” Albert said.
“By paying him with beer?”
“I paid him what he wanted, and Sam was okay with it. You were at the meeting,” Albert said. “Look, how else do you think you get someone like Orc to spend hours in the hot sun working? Astrid seems to think people will work just because we ask them to. Maybe some will. But Orc?”
Lana could see his point. “Okay. I shouldn’t have jumped all over you.”
“It’s okay. I’m getting used to it,” Albert said. “Suddenly I’m the bad guy. But you know what? I didn’t make people the way they are. If kids are going to work, they’re going to want something back.”
“If they don’t work, we all starve.”
“Yeah. I get that,” Albert said with more than a tinge of sarcasm. “Only, here’s the thing: Kids know we won’t let them starve as long as there’s any food left, right? So they figure, hey, let someone else do the work. Let someone else pick cabbages and artichokes.”
Lana wanted to get back to her run. She needed to finish, to run to the FAYZ wall. But there was something fascinating about Albert. “Okay. So how do you get people to work?”
He shrugged. “Pay them.”
“You mean, money?”
“Yeah. Except guess who had most of the money in their wallets and purses when they disappeared? Then a few kids stole what was left in cash registers and all. So if we start back using the old money we just make a few thieves powerful. It’s kind of a problem.”
“Why is a kid going to work for money if they know we’ll share the food, anyway?” Lana asked.
“Because some will do different stuff for money. I mean, look, some kids have no skills, right? So they pick the food for money. Then they take the money and spend it with some kid who can maybe cook the food for them, right? And that kid maybe needs a pair of sneakers and some other kid has rounded up all the sneakers and he has a store.”
Lana realized her mouth was open. She laughed. The first time in a while.
“Fine. Laugh,” Albert said, and turned away.
“No, no, no,” Lana hastened to say. “No, I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s just that, I mean, you’re the only kid that has any kind of a plan for anything. "
― Michael Grant , Hunger (Gone, #2)
6
" Occasionally, in the stillness of a taxi or an airplane, she would catalog the pleasures she had lost. Cigarettes. Chewing gum. Strong mint toothpaste. Any food with hard edges or sharp corners that could pierce or abrade the inside of her mouth: potato chips, croutons, crunchy peanut butter. Any food that was more than infinitesimally, protozoically, spicy or tangy or salty or acidic: pesto or Worcestershire sauce, wasabi or anchovies, tomato juice or movie-theater popcorn. Certain pamphlets and magazines whose paper carried a caustic wafting chemical scent she could taste as she turned the pages. Perfume. Incense. Library books. Long hours of easy conversation. The ability to lick an envelope without worrying that the glue had irritated her mouth. The knowledge that if she heard a song she liked, she could sing along to it in all her dreadful jubilant tunelessness. The faith that if she bit her tongue, she would soon feel better rather than worse. "
― Kevin Brockmeier , The Illumination
11
" For anyone who thinks " profit" is evil, I have a challenge for you: try NOT to get any profit in the next week. Profit simply means increasing how much valuable stuff you have, and if you don't profit, you die. Literally. For example, don't buy any food for a week, because when you buy food (or anything), it's because you value the food MORE than you value the money you trade for it. If you didn't, you wouldn't make the trade. So you PROFIT (and so does the seller) every time you buy something. And every time you sell something, or work for money, etc. So before condemning " profit" (or " greed" or " selfishness," for that matter), see if you can survive without it. Then stop repeating vague collectivist BS, and learn to distinguish between " win/win" events (voluntary exchange) where BOTH sides profit, and " win/lose" events, where one side benefits by harming the other side. By the way, " government" is ALWAYS the latter. "
13
" Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow.
Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times. "
― Bob Thurber , Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel
