Kal's Gift Shop

The Third of July 2018.

Article I – Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good. Article II – The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression. Article III – The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual can exert authority which does not emanate expressly from it. Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the fruition of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law. Article V – The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order. Article VI – The law is the ex...

So, I suppose I should tell you how it came to be known as Kal's Gift Shop. Back in 2002, I was working at a T.J. Maxx in Dublin, Calif., and I had this young co-worker whose name, sadly, I don't even remember. He was a cute kid with a young son, with whose baby mama he was engaged in an unfriendly custody battle. Somehow it must have come up during work that I am a writer. Maybe I mentioned I was writing something. Maybe he was just responding to what he'd just heard. I remember talking to [what's his name] standing in the hallway that led from the employee lunch room to the sales floor. I remember his saying, yeah you should write, and post it on the Internet and call it: "Kal's Gift Shop"! So, there it is. That's how it started.