‘Work’ is a 4-letter word

    I recently read about a 23-year-old woman in Spain who sued her parents because they refused to continue to support her. She was living at her parent's home, had no money, never finished high school and testified that her parents were putting undue pressure on her to get a job. She had held a couple jobs very briefly, but she quit because, and I quote, “It was too much work.”
    Which is kinda the whole point.
    The lazy young lady may win her case because the average age at which Spaniards leave home is 29 years old, so she should have six more years of mooching left.
    Spain is not alone in this outbreak of laziness. Over 20 million Americans between the ages 18 and 31 are still living with their parents. And I recently read that in the future a good chunk of American males may NEVER have a job during their entire lives! I personally know a 30-year-old man who has sired two children, lives with his mother and apparently feels in no rush to get a job. I’ve had another millennial young man tell me at age 25 that he feels burned out and hopes to retire at age 30.
    I can’t relate to any of this. In high school, I worked every summer. For two summers, I picked citrus alongside Hispanic crews who could work rings around me. These Hispanics must NOT have been related to the Spaniards, because where I might pick 30 boxes of lemons per day, they’d pick 50. Between my junior and senior years, I got the worst job ever. I had to crawl under lemon trees, dig a basin around each tree and paint around its circumference 18 inches high to prevent insects from crawling up the trees. The toxic “paint”, which I’m quite sure contributed to my health problems later in life, was a nasty substance I can still smell now 50 years later. For this work, I got paid the princely sum of $1.25 per hour.
    As a youngster, I also worked at a gas station, mowed lawns, delivered newspapers, raised show steers and ran a rabbit business that multiplied rapidly. In the summers between my three collegiate years, I worked in the oil fields, and during Christmas and Spring breaks, when everyone else went home, I worked at the university livestock facilities. Through it all, I gained a work ethic that has served me well. I’m 67 now and plan on working until I take THE LONG NAP.

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