Content Warning: Mentions of drowning and death My best friend, when I was eight years old, we went camping in Oscoda and and we thought where we were was frozen over and spoiler was not frozen over the very surface was frozen but she walked onto the ice and she fell through and we found her three days later. She was dead. She had drowned. That was my first introduction with death. Actually, It's kind of a morbid story, I am sure it's not the light-hearted ones that I think are expected, but to her credit or to my parents' credit. They did not know that we were out there. We were supposed to be on the shore and not go near the water. We were kind of having like a little picnic with another family that we'd met at the campground. and I being overly cautious, then and now, I remember saying "I don't think this is really a great idea." It doesn't you know, my mom said it's not it looks more solid than it is and neither of us were very small children. We were very very stocky overweight to be honest children and she, I don't know what her plan was, I think she thought she could make it like a large slip and slide. Or a slip n' bleed rather. Yeah, she took she just took off running and then kind of made like that diving motion you make on a slip and slide and she just crashed right through the surface. My parents and the other parents did everything they could. They tried to get rope, but she kind of she was flailing a lot. We couldn't get her back to the hole. She was under the ice and she was kind of drifting away from the the hole where my parents couldn't couldn't grab her. They tried to grab her and my father wanted to go in and he couldn't- he couldn't fit through the hole and he was you know punching at the ice trying to make the hole bigger and it just it wasn't making it bigger. You know looking back maybe we could have gotten something to make the hole larger but none of us- I mean, I was eight. My parents were freaking out. Everyone was freaking out. They called the police the police. I don't remember how long…

If I was stuck in a time loop, what day would I pick? I always have questions around these prompts. Like how long does the time loose loop last for because that would change my answer. But I think if I just if I didn't know that then it could go on indefinitely. I would probably pick a day that I don't have any set obligations. So like Saturday or Sunday where, in theory, I could do all different kinds of things that day. So it would be a Saturday or Sunday in the summer. Um, I would want everything about my life currently to remain true. So, I have a partner I would want to be with my partner. I wouldn't choose a day in the past before I knew him. And then I think I would just kind of reinvent the day each time. So sometimes maybe it would be really structured and I'd go out to events and things and other times. I would just kind of lounge around. I would- I guess okay- I've revised my answer. I want it to be a Saturday because some things are closed on Sunday. So it's a Saturday which means the library would be open. So if I wanted to read all different kinds of books this loop just went on forever and ever and ever. That would be really nice and I wouldn't have to pay for it. Although I guess my bank account would reset each day. So it doesn't matter. I was gonna say that I might try to gamble but it wouldn't matter again because even if I won it would reset the next day. Yeah. A random Saturday in the summer with my partner. No, nowhere to be. No plans I'm missing.

I do have, kind of a fun story. We had at the library this summer a series of book talks which we do every year. So authors come in, talk about their work. And people get to ask questions and have a chance to buy their, buy their books and have them signed, that type of thing. So we had- usually we try and have, Michigan authors or stories that take place in Michigan something that has some sort of a local Michigan connection and one of the books this year was called the Dock Porter, which is about the dock porters on Mackinac Island. And the two guys that wrote it were actually dock porters. I think in the 1970s 80s something like that and they just remember their- just an incredible experience being these dock porters on Mackinac Island, that's where they met each other and have stayed friends, you know since then. So they gave this talk one of them was in person and one of them actually lives in the Philippines. So we zoomed the second author in. And it was a really great talk really interesting, you know, a lot of really good questions from the audience and then this lady who was in the audience started to tell this story and she was very quiet. It was kind of hard to hear and she looked like she was you know quite elderly. And she talked about this story about how her mother was a schoolteacher on Mackinac Island and how they used to live there, and they used to walk across the channel between the you know, they used to walk across well Lake Michigan and to get from the Upper Peninsula to the lower Peninsula and they used to plant, I should- plant- but they used to put trees down to kind of make make a path, so people knew where they were going, so they put these trees in the ice. And she just had this incredible story and it turns out she's a hundred and three years old and really just had some amazing amazing stories about walking across the ice from Mackinac Island to the lower Peninsula and it was such an incredible such an incredible story that I thought that was I thought that was pretty cool.

I saw that Michigan has passed the- I don't know what the phrase is for it, um for tipped workers where we have to get paid now a minimum wage of 12 dollars an hour instead of the whatever it is like $3.75 or whatever. I get $5 an hour and then plus all my tips. And it's kind of I know people are appealing it and bringing it up into higher courts, and it's probably going to go to the Michigan Supreme Court. And I got to be honest, I don't know how I feel about it passing. I think people are doing it because they want to help. Because they think it's really unfair that we're not making real money. But like I have this fear that if it does pass. You know, the tipping culture will go away. Which don't get me wrong, it is stupid, like the whole idea of it is dumb, I understand, but it's my life and I'm accustomed to it now. Yeah, and so if the tipping culture goes away to wait tables for 12 dollars an hour and then you know say maybe you get like five percent or 10% tips on top of it. I'll be making so much less a year. Like there's no way I would stay I will let you know right now. There's no way I would keep waiting tables, you know at 31 years old. If I was making twelve dollars an hour, like right now I make somewhere between I don't know, between $25 and $40 an hour. Which yeah, why would I want to change that? And then I do understand like some people think that like it would make more sense to have more fair salary between front of house and back of the house. But my opinion is take all that extra money that you would give me for the twelve dollars an hour and just give it to back of house. I don't think people that work back of house should be making any less than 20 dollars an hour like that should be the minimum. It's a hard job. And it's hot and it breaks your body, and you work every night and every weekend and every holiday. And most of the time you get no insurance. No benefits. No sick leave, no paid time off. No 401k. But it's a skilled labor job,…