Steve Goodman and John Prine are said to have written the "perfect" country song. Incorporating as it does trucks, trains, the rain, mama, drinkin' and prison.
"Well, I was drunk the day my mama got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got run over by a damned old train..."
Kentucky Route Zero came to me at a shaky time in my life. Such that it was full of impactful moments. Maybe made more so by myself living in the often grim, beautiful and haunted place that is east Kentucky -and of course late stage capitalism.
Orchids to Dusk is another that inspires awe. Though it is entirely about looking for a nice place to die.
This is my speculation too. Been super-sick a number of times. Always swabbed negative. Anecdotally, I know folks that tested a lot more often and only came back with a positive on the 4th try or so when feeling ill. The fine-print of my at-home tests say they're only something like 76% accurate. Maybe I need to play the odds.
Somebody explain this to the trees that drop millions of nuts in the surrounding forest every few years skyrocketing not only rodent populations but also their parasites; ticks, chiggers, fleas. Predators are here, but they can't seem to catch up to the mouse output.
If you are in the U.S. and have a Habitat for Humanity ReStore nearby, there are often lots of "dumb" flat screens to be had for a song. If you don't mind a slightly older bit of hardware.
There's a meatpacking plant in the closest little town to us out here in the Appalachian sticks. It stinks to high heavens from miles away. Nobody seems to work there long. They had some push to import laborers from eastern Europe and for a time had flyers posted around town in those languages. Then, after a while they all seemed to be gone.
Same boat. It took my health totally imploding to galvanize my resolve to look closely at what I might do and do it. I lost 115 lbs and have kept it off 22 years this summer. Managed to resolve all my metabolic health problems and vastly improve some unrelated ones. My quality of life improved in many ways. A tough row to hoe. Yet totally worthwhile for me anyway. And I do recognize there is a privilege in being able to devote the resources to one's health. I know it's far tougher for lots of folks. And certainly more so now than a couple decades ago.
"Mr. Chambers! Don't get on that ship! That OS, it's...it's a COOKBOOK!"