The future?

Man in his 50’s sitting on stoop. Younger man jogs by.

Man on stoop calls out:

“What’s up buddy? Got ten bucks?”

“For you?”

“Why not. I’m a citizen.”

“Why don’t you work?”

“Do you always lecture. At what may I ask?”

“I don’t know… That’s something you have to answer for yourself.”

“When you find out, let me know…”

“What do you want ten dollars for?”

“To get a lift to Mexican border.”

“Why?”

“Might sneak over. See if I can get job working for I.B.M.”

“How could you work for I.B.M.?”

“Hey, buddy, I didn’t always look like this… I used to be a well regarded systems engineer for the high tech industry.”

“What happened?”

“My boss said two things to me.”

“What?”

“Train this replacement; and we pay you too much.”

“What happened?”

“I joined the legion of stoop sitters. Who wants a tech guy in his mid-fifties?”

“Did you complain?”

“Sure, I even called the number he gave me.”

“What happened?”

“I explained what happened but I couldn’t understand the answer.”

“India?”

“You got it.”

So what happened after that?”

“I knocked them dead at Wal-Mart.”

“With the result?”

“American industry lost more jobs.”

“Sad story.”

“For us; not the guys who relocated.”

What do you mean?”

“Right now, there are a couple of thousand Americans that are doing pretty well building American products with Chinese labor to be exported from China to be sold to Americans through Wal-Mart. But, now, that is coming back to haunt us, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you need to earn a salary to shop in even Wal-Mart.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that.”

“And I wouldn’t call fast food the gravy train.”

“Neither would I.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Grow cotton.”

“What?”

“Yup! The Chinese always need cotton…”

“Kind of a switch on 200 years of integration.”

“Yup, the white guy grows cotton in the age of technology.”

“Could be worse, I guess.”

“Could it? I heard that Britain was given first nibs on buying us back.”

“What happened?”

“They turned us down.”

“ So much for the fruits of independence.”

“See you…”

“ How do you say that in Chinese?”

“I dunno. Why do you ask?”

“I got a feeling we’re going to need to know…”