Striking out, bad-old days & parental puttering

Dear Rachel,

Enough with the writers strike! They have the cheapest job in the whole film and TV industry, so they should be happy to make anything they can get. They are “starving artists” for a reason, because someone is always willing to come do their job for less just to make their break. So get back to work, and keep making our shows!

– Strike Out

Dear Stick It Picket,

Yeah! Writers are cheap! Anyone could do our jobs! I mean, not ANYONE, because clearly you’re not quite up to the task. But AI could do our jobs! In fact, streaming shows could get so affordable by screwing screenwriters with AI that they don’t even HAVE to sell ads anymore! So you can watch really crappy, heartless, formulaic, soul-sucking series without interruption. I’m cool with it. As long as they don’t come for the newspaper writers, I’m cool.

– Artificially, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

Yeah yeah, inflation sucks. You know what sucks more? People talking about how they used to buy their sody-pop for a nickel and their gas for a dime and, I don’t know, their blow for a 20 spot or whatever a good price was in 1986. Guess what? You also made $2 a day, or maybe more than that by the ’80s. Still, everything goes up, and it always will, until the U.S. falls and our money becomes worthless. How can I tell these people to clam up without everyone else in line hating me for it?

– Money Talks

Dear Attitude Rich,

Jeez, man, do you also hate hearing people talk about how rent used to be affordable and food didn’t bankrupt a family? Actually, I hate it too, but for different reasons than you. No one should have to work more jobs to cover basic life. I also hate that I can’t pay for more things with change. I keep all my cash in coins, because if I learned anything from Rome, it’s that after the fall, those things are worth a fortune.

– Inflate this, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

My parents-in-law are always taking it on themselves to do “projects” around our house. Sometimes it’s handy, because hey, look, the faucet stopped dripping! But most of the time, it’s things like installing pavers in the yard (where we didn’t even want pavers) or rearranging our picture frames. The one time we asked them to talk to us before undertaking anything, they flipped out. What’s our best strategy here?

– Ain’t Broke

Dear Don’t Fixit,

Let them flip out! Let them eat butt-hurt cake. Your house, your rules. I guarantee they told your spouse that at some point. Now it’s your turn. I mean, if this were a movie, I’d want you to go all tit-for-tat on their asses. Pavers in your yard? Concrete lawn art on theirs. They paint your window trim? You paint their windows. But it’s not a movie, because the screenwriters are on strike, so the best I can hope for is a reality show.

– Always breaking, never broken, Rachel