Happy-Go-Lucky

by David Sedaris

I’ve thought of that Ladies’ Home Journal column a lot lately, wondering if marital problems in the seventies and eighties weren’t all fairly basic: She’s an alcoholic. He’s been sleeping with his sister-in-law. She’s a spendthrift and a racist, he’s a control freak, etc. No couple argued over which gender their child should be allowed to identify as; no one’s husband or wife got sucked into QAnon or joined a paramilitary group. Sure, there were conspiracy theories, but in those pre-internet days it was harder to submerge yourself in them. A spouse might have been addicted to Valium but not to video games, or online gambling. I don’t know that one can technically be addicted to pornography, but that’s bound to put a strain on marriages, especially now, when it’s at your fingertips, practically daring you not to look at it. I’ve watched a number of movies and TV shows lately in which the characters’ marriages dissolve for no real reason. I said to Hugh during Ted Lasso, “Did I miss the episode where he or his wife had an affair?” The same was true of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story: “Why are they getting a divorce?”

I thought I’d support the movement the way I had become accustomed to: by donating money and then telling people I’d donated twice as much. The moment I sent off my contributions, I saw the protests differently, for now I had done something and could feel superior to those who hadn’t.

The trucks were unnaturally high off the ground and most often had jacked-up front wheels that made them look like they were forever going uphill—Carolina Squats, they were called, or bro dozers. Their mufflers had been modified as well, or perhaps they’d been removed altogether. Engines roared as if to say, “Asshole coming through!”

the moment that Biden was sworn in to office I let it all go. When the new president speaks, I feel the way I do on a plane when the pilot announces that after reaching our cruising altitude he will head due north, or take a left at Lake Erie. You don’t need to tell me about your job, I always think. Just, you know, do it.

Dear God, I thought. America, as I knew it, is finished. Aren’t you supposed to have a shitty job when you’re a teenager? It’s how you develop a sense of compassion. The three oldest kids in my family worked in cafeterias, while Amy was a supermarket cashier. Tiffany worked in kitchens; Paul too. We made $1.60 an hour and, dammit, we were happy to get it. That’s the way this country ran. If, at age sixteen, you wanted a bong, you went out there and worked for it. Now I guess your parents just buy it for you and probably give you the pot as well.