blood: Us and Them

"How are you?" The technician asked as I was weighed and measured.

"Good," I said. "I just got over some allergies."

He nodded. It wasn't on his list. He didn't care.

"We have a lot of trees where I live," I told him. "Well, we used to."

He looked up. He was vaguely interested.

"Yeah, a storm came through, knocked an oak tree down, which apparently took out a whole bunch of other trees. I had to get the landlord to come and chop the stuff up --I hate calling the landlord."

He nodded again.

"Yeah, I'm looking at building a house," he said. "You know you can build a place out toward Scott Depot for like half or a third what you pay for a house that's already built."

I listened intently. Great for him, I guess. I've been looking at houses lately, though none seem likely to happen anytime soon.

"I've got some land," he continued. "I'm looking at building for about $125,000. When it's done, it will be worth $300,000, maybe more."

He was a true believer and suddenly, I wondered, how much do they pay these people? I'd noticed the cars outside. You can tell who is who based on what they drive. The cars for the staff are typically much nicer than the cars for the bleeders. Without much thought, it's obvious there is something of an income difference, but I'd never considered it would be so vast.

He finished up. My blood pressure was a little higher than normal, but nothing to be concerned about. That was probably from the allergy meds I'd taken the day before.

"OK," he said. "You're finished. You can go back now. You have a good day."

He had a bright smile and I thought, he's building his dream house with the money he gets here. Me, I'm going to go buy my wife a cheap, cell phone from a grocery store.

Apparently, I'm doing it wrong.