By Ricky Swindle

Muffler Shop Musings

Howdy, friends!

I hope y’all were safe during our big thunderstorm activity.

We lost our bee tree in the storm. It was a hollowed out living tree in our yard that was home to thousands of honeybees. We spent many afternoons on our front porch watching them tirelessly work.

I knew eventually one day it would succumb to a storm or high wind and last Wednesday morning was the ending chapter for our bee tree.

Folks are getting in their government “stimmy” money and spending like it’s never going to end. Oh, but it will end. It has to.

At some point all that “free” money has got to be paid back some way somehow and us everyday working class folks know all too well how they will retrieve that money – on our backs.

Last year when the first round of stimulus checks rolled in folks needed some help, in my opinion, with jobs being shut down for Covid protocols, and the grocery stores being swarmed. Shelves were stripped bare, especially the toilet paper rack.

I have a fear that the government is teaching folks not to work. At one time the Fed was adding $600 per week to the amount the states were already sending people for unemployment benefits.

Folks were making more money staying home than working. Double and triple more in some cases.

The federal unemployment amount now has been amended to $300 per week along with state money, but that is still a great sum.

All this money is not pulled out of the air, there will be a great day of reckoning when the government comes for a payback to recoup their losses.

Already I see on social media some people have “overdrawn” their unemployment benefits the past year and the powers that be are attaching to their stimmy money and their tax returns getting that overpayment back.

There are folks in this country who are ghosts, so to speak. They work here, there and yonder for cash and even if they do receive a 1099 or W-2 form from an employer they just simply trash it because they are not in the habit of filing taxes anyway.

The government has told them lately that no matter if you filed taxes or not you are eligible for the stimulus money, and we’ll show you how to get it. Now, with greed being one of the seven deadly sins these folks are taking the bait and going for the money.

So much for being a ghost, they got you now.

This whole government money giving away thing reminds me of Sea World in Orlando.

At Sea World they have this huge open top aquarium full of stingrays. This attraction is as big as three car bays at my store.

You can hand feed the stingrays using little minnows that are sold there. You place the minnow in your fingers and the rays immediately swim to you in a furor attempting to be the one who enjoys that snack.

But, you can also place your empty hand in the tank and they will continue the same exact routine until they figure out there is no minnow.

The Federal Government is feeding minnows to Americans. One day in the near future, that hand will be empty and there will be no snack.

The thing about those stingrays is their entire lives will be spent in that tank because they are so accustomed to being hand fed by humans that they no longer have the ability to live in the ocean and fend for themselves as true stingrays do, and they would not survive.

I don’t think I want to live in a tank. I plan to keep sliding my work boots on for as long as The Good Lord will allow, and go get my own food.

Tank living is not for me.

I was raised to take care of me and mine by myself, and that has been and will always remain my goal.

This old stingray can’t be petted.

Take care of yourself folks and check on your old friends and neighbors every chance you get.

Write to rickyswindle@bellsouth.net