About Deserving

Some people attract help, others repel it.  Some people, no matter how much help they receive, everyone cheers and assures, You deserve it.  Other people, it is offensive if they receive so much as a bologna sandwich.  With or without mayonnaise.  With or without American cheese.  They’re just using the system, those people.  (The system is not for them.)

It is unknown how it’s determined, who deserves and who does not deserve.  It is not necessarily race, age or veteran status.  I have noticed that deserving often skips a generation.  Although it is unknown, one thing is clear: everyone knows who deserves and who does not deserve.  Everyone knows, absolutely everyone, except for the person concerned, who may or may not think that he or she deserves, and who may or may not be mistaken.

How delighted they will be, if they discover that they are eligible for everything, that they are richly deserving.  If their faith flags for even a moment, people will leap forward to remind them how very deserving they are, and that for them nothing whatsoever is too much.

Some people cannot receive enough.  Everyone agrees.  To see them receive less than the entire earth is upsetting, very upsetting to everyone, let’s roast a duck to make up for it, it’s so upsetting, it’s nearly as upsetting as the possibility that the undeserving might receive, let’s say, free return postage.

On the other hand, a person may discover that he or she deserves nothing.  Everyone agrees.  In fact it’s totally obvious.  Even the idea that he or she might receive something is repugnant.

These undeserving persons may weep and moan, they may protest.  But, to tell the truth, this is exceedingly rare.  More often than not the undeserving accept the news without a word, when they learn that they have been specially selected to receive nothing, that nothing is what he or she deserves, and that absolutely everyone agrees.

It is highly unlikely she will protest.  She will not cry or complain or write her senator.  She may sit for some time in a plastic chair.  Then she will let herself out without saying a word.  She assumes that, since it is so obvious to everyone else, there must be some good reason.