The Travails of Fartly

Do you want to know what I'd like to bemoan? The Oregon Trail. Not the actual wagon route that people back in the nineteenth century would set out upon in the vague hope that one or two of their children might survive the journey to settle in the pacific northwest, grow ironic mustaches and pay too much for tiny houses, but the computer game.

Pictured: A be-flanneled couple posing by their new tiny house,
basking in the joy of minimalism and how they just want to, you know
get back to basics. Not pictured: a week later when the crushing
realization sets in that they just sold all their shit to live in a closet.

"Sir, I'm going to need you to take the lard
out of your bag and place it on the belt."

-Some TSA guy

Yeah, that black and green, strangely addictive simulation of how miserable life was in the eighteen hundreds that we were plunked down in front of in grade school so that we could "learn computers." Now if you're wondering how knowing how many axels and pounds of lard a Boston banker's family would need on deadly, four to six month slog that now takes four to six hours (depending on connecting flights) relates to coding or web development, wonder no longer. The answer is, it doesn't. At all. And that's why I may never fulfill my dream of living in the great State of Vermont.

"Let's see...scam, scam, sc-literally
everything in your inbox is a scam.
Maybe just watch NCIS instead?"

-Some millennial 

Ok, obviously I don't actually want to live in Vermont, but I do want someone to pay me ten thousand dollars to work from a coffeeshop. And that's exactly what the desperate, yet flush with cash government of Vermont is willing to do. That is, if you work for a tech company and live anywhere but there. Vermont, it turns out, is aging. Well, obviously, everything is aging, but what I mean is that its population is getting older and well, you know, dying off. They're dying off and dead people pay no taxes so Vermont wants millennials to come shore up their tax base and maybe help them fix their internets.

And they're willing to pay. Aware that most Americans can't find their state on a map, Vermontian legislators have put together a bill that would give out-of-state workers $10,000 to cover moving costs to relocate to the Maple Syrup State. That's their motto, right?

Well? No, that's New Hampshire. Try again. Huh? No, that's
Connecticut. One more try-no, that's the ocean...ju-just give up.
It is biologically impossible for humans to find Vermont on a map.

Pictured: America's 2nd most expensive
place to live, Santa Cruz. For context,
New York is number 4. New York. City.

So if you're one of those people who had the foresight to forgo The Oregon Trail and instead earn how these magic thinky-boxes work, congratulations, you could live be living in Vermont right now. And you know what? I'm all for this. Here's the thing: I live in Santa Cruz, California, which is number two on the Bureau of Economic Analysis's list of the ten most expensive places to live. We're just behind San Jose, which is forty minutes away and the epicenter or tech jobs that pay a shit-ton and don't require you to show up at an office. See where I'm going with this?

Santa Cruz is lovely. We have beaches and a boardwalk and The Lost Boys was filmed here. But is it twenty-seven hundred a month for a one bedroom lovely?

Before you answer that, know that we've named a park after local hero
and most famous resident: Oily Saxophone Player from The Lost Boys.

(source: whimsy)

Above: every screen in fourth period
computer lab. (source: being ten)

No, of course it isn't. It is however slightly cheaper if you're one of the aforementioned Google employees whose office is wherever there's a decent wifi signal. So on the one hand I have a problem with the fact that Vermont is offering rich people another perk for being rich, but on the other hand luring tech industry people out of the area can only be a win-win for those of us who wasted computer class on the travails of Fartly, his wife Areola, and their children: Flatus, Buttina and little Poop. So like, thanks public school...

Anyway, I wish the good people of Vermont luck in wooing tech-industry people away from the perpetual good weather, abundant job opportunities and distinct lack of hungry wolves of the Bay Area and towards the uh...skiing and fall foliage, I guess, of Vermont. Look, it might sound like I'm trashing Vermont, but for real, if they offered me ten thousand dollars to move there, I'd probably take it. So if anyone from Vermont is reading this and needs someone with a B.A. in theatre and a blog that's mostly about Star Trek, gimme a ring.

Pictured: Vermont. Hey, I don't want to tell you how to attract workers to your state,
 but as someone who used to live in nearby upstate New York, which is equally
beautiful, but equally frigid, maybe you aught to make it twelve? Just a thought.