Most Americans felt the pinch of chronic financial instability even before COVID-19 aggravated the country’s catastrophic wealth inequality by helping shift billions more dollars into the pockets of a handful of billionaires. So even if you don’t recognize yourself in the lyrics of Thank You, I’m Sorry’s “Menthol Flavored Oatmeal”—which describes a twentysomething working ten-hour days at a minimum-wage service job that barely makes a dent in their college tuition—you can probably relate to the band’s front person, Colleen Dow, when they gloomily sing about enduring the pressure cooker of early adulthood (though they wrote the tune before anybody had to consider the dire health risk of attending in-person classes or working a service-industry job during a pandemic).…
Most Americans felt the pinch of chronic financial instability even before COVID-19 aggravated the country’s catastrophic wealth inequality by helping shift billions more dollars into the pockets of a handful of billionaires. So even if you don’t recognize yourself in the lyrics of Thank You, I’m Sorry’s “Menthol Flavored Oatmeal”—which describes a twentysomething working ten-hour days at a minimum-wage service job that barely makes a dent in their college tuition—you can probably relate to the band’s front person, Colleen Dow, when they gloomily sing about enduring the pressure cooker of early adulthood (though they wrote the tune before anybody had to consider the dire health risk of attending in-person classes or working a service-industry job during a pandemic).…