Too Much Drama fo’ Yo’ Momma Street Corner Theatre Productions presents “Free Like Government Cheese,” a one-man play by Filmo Jones.
I stand unemployed, waiting in line with a jobless and humbled humanity, which stretches outside the doors of this building and around the corner. I recall in flashbacks that dreaded day when I received the news that my position was terminated. I remember the quietness of my co-workers—already distancing themselves from me—in the corporate office. I asked, “The pink slip is a joke, right?”
Bart, the office comedian, replied: “Filmo, allow me to break it down like Donald Trump. You’re fired!”
The ridicule and humiliation was too much. I stormed out of the corporate office to my apartment. While gathering items to pawn for cash, Grandma Pookie and the Ghetto Science Team stopped by to encourage me. Grandma said: “Caring corporations are gone! No gold watches. No retirement. Today, a company will kick yo’ middle-clASS behind to the curb at the drop of a pink slip! Anyway, yo’ high stress corporate job was like a 3,000-pound King Kong monkey on yo’ back! And now you’re free like gub-mint cheese!”
I dried my tears and said, “Very encouraging, Grandma.” Then Grandma said, “Filmo, before you go to the unemployment office, I wanna buy that chandelier hangin’ in yo’ dining room. Lil’ Ray-Ray wants to put it in his refurbished 1987 Cadillac El-Dorado.”
As the long line advances, I return to my current reality.
Ken Stiggers is a television producer in Jackson and the co-host of The Lyric Lounge.
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.