MARGE, I don’t usually interfere with strangers on the street and neither do I butt my nose into people’s business ’cause folks have been known to get killed on account of that sort of thing, and I want to be around here for a long time to come … but as the man says, it’s the exception that proves the rule.
Girl, I’m not interested in how much you spent on your Christmas presents ’cause that money is as gone as yesterday’s snow, I don’t care how you figure it. Let’s talk about now…. Of course, I liked my present, and by the way, how did you know I needed a sequin bed jacket? … Well, you sure are a good guesser because I know I never mentioned it!
Getting back to my story, when I was comin’ home from work this evenin’, I passed one of them step-ladder speakers, and I mean to tell you he had some lot of people standin’ around listenin’ to him. There he was just a-wavin’ his arms and hollerin’ real loud ’bout food prices bein’ so high and the bus and subway fares goin’ up, and honey that cold weather wind was whippin’ his coattail to a frazzle, so I thought to myself, “If he got the gumption to stand on that cold corner and talk, I’ll have the grace to stay with him a while.”
Well, he did right well, although I figured he jumped around too much instead of stickin’ to one subject…. You know what I mean. He’d talk about Jim Crow a bit and just when you got interested in hearin’ all about that, he’d go talkin’ about unemployment, and then on top of that he was talkin’ too long, and I got to go to work in the mornin’, so as much as I wanted to hear it all, I had to leave….
No, Marge! I didn’t tell him all that! I just left peaceable and quiet…. Well, another woman was leavin’ at the same time and I heard her grumble, “If he don’t like it here, why don’t he go somewhere else!” I turned around to look at her and she looked a whole lot better than she sounded, so I said to her, “You better wish he stays right here, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Well,” she says, “if he’s discontented he oughta go where he’ll be content. After all, everybody ain’t dissatisfied!” Since she was travellin’ in my direction, I walked right along beside her. “Listen here, lady,” I says, “you work eight hours a day instead of twelve or fourteen because a gang of dissatisfied folks raised sand until they made it a law, and if they had all gone somewhere else you would still be on the job now instead of on your way home for supper.
“Discontented brothers and sisters made little children go to school instead of workin’ in the factory. A whole lot of angry, discontented women fixed things so that we womenfolk could vote. All these different denominations of churches were set up because folks were discontented with one or another of them. Look at these housing projects—they were built because some folks were fightin’ mad about livin’ in slums. And you get paid a certain amount of money per hour ’cause folks were discontented with less, and if you belong to a union you know full well that it wasn’t started by folks that loved their bosses.
“Another thing … public schools were not started by parents who were content with private ones. Why, whoever invented a washing machine must have figured that an awful lot of women were discontented with washin’ boards … and when it comes to your remarkin’ the fact that everybody ain’t dissatisfied, all I can say is there was a whole gang of folks who didn’t think Social Security or Unemployment Insurance was necessary, but try to take it away from them now that they’ve got it, and you’ll hear a different tone!”
… No, Marge, she didn’t get mad. All she said was, “My, I never looked at it that way, I guess you’re right.” We parted good friends and the last thing I told her was, “When we get peace in the world it will only go to prove my point: people are sure discontented and dissatisfied with war!”
… That’s right, Marge! Why if man was content to walk there would be no airplanes or trains! Girl, some people spend a lot of time fightin’ advancement, but after all the Good Book says, “Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge; but he that hateth reproof is brutish.”