Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich

leap into his before any more failures can be confessed, telling us, "I have own business. But this won't be easy, because he has two children to dig the pain out, but he's very tender; I can't push too and a nonworking wife. Suddenly, as if losing patience, hard." We are all asked to comment on Richard's condition, Patrick "freezes" Kevin and turns to us: "The person who is and the overeager Billy, who turns out to have spent most of stopping Kevin is who?"
    his life in the military, observes briskly, "They want ten to four-Everyone, myself excepted, answers in unison: "Kevin!"
    teen hours a day now," apparently referring to the high-Somehow Kevin's plight inspires Patrick to launch into an pressure real estate job. "It's a challenge."
    anecdote about his college friend Mitch. Years ago, when they were
    "They?" Patrick interrupts. "Who are they?"
    both young, they had gone to Mitch's house for Thanksgiving It turns out that we are not to talk about "them"; we are to dinner. Patrick sets the scene carefully: Outside it was cold and confine ourselves to speaking "experientially." But Cynthia, slushy. Inside, the house was warm, filled with enticing cooking the redhead, who turns out to be a real estate agent, makes the smells. Before dinner, he and Mitch decided to sneak into the same mistake, commenting that "Richard's taking personally kitchen and make turkey sandwiches for themselves. They were the fact that the real estate market is so awful." Patrick ignores gleefully stuffing themselves when Patrick heard a crash behind this sensible interjection. The market is of no interest to us; it'sjust him. Mitch had fallen to the floor. Patrick thought that this must have been another one of Mitch's pranks, but Mitch Patrick must have liked the device enough to apply it, however was lying there turning blue. He had had a stroke. As a result sloppily, to himself. But the details need some tweaking. What he became disfigured and unable to speak for months. But were they doing carving up the turkey for sandwiches just guess what? He is Mitch. Mitch is really Patrick.
    before dinner? No matter how hungry you are, the carving of the And this shows . . . Well, he went through this terrible turkey is a ritual activity, performed at the table on an intact bird.
    struggle in rehab to learn to speak again. Patrick pauses, lost in And why was the kitchen empty at this crucial moment when some personal zone. What it shows is, well—and all he can the potato mashing and gravy making should be in full swing? I come up with is "the importance of being understood."
    would like to share these questions, but they might seem Baffled by the anecdote, we are dismissed into the hotel unkind. James, anyway, has exhausted his interest in the topic and lobby for a break over coffee and juice supplied by the Hamp-moved on to the juice dispenser, while Cynthia is sharing with me ton. I introduce myself to James, the wild-haired guy, explain-her concern about confidentiality. I agree, it's hard to let down ing that I've only been searching for a couple of months.
    your guard if you don't know the people, and at this point I see
    "Welcome to the land of the undead," he says, adding that no reason to trust Patrick himself. Boot camp seems to be he's been looking for a telecommunications job for over a year.
    structured like group therapy, but the most challenging case in the I ask what he made of the story, and he shrugs, wondering group may be that of our leader.
    only why Patrick had changed his name from Mitch. My the-Back from our break, we hear from a thirtysomething ory, which I do not share, is that somewhere along the line woman who "loves" her job as a hospital administrator but can no Patrick heard a similar narrative from a motivational speaker: longer keep up with the hours, given the demands of motherhood, there was this boy who grew up in poverty and was abused all and would rather do something more meaningful and "people the time and had a