An Italian man recounts how his father came into money upon arriving in the United States but spent and then lost it all when his factory caught fire. Despite his Papa’s veritable financial ignorance and dangerous pride, the son asserts none of it was ever his father's fault.

To earn enough money for college, a high school graduate takes a grueling factory job. He expects his only takeaway from the work to be a paycheck, but a mysterious coworker teaches him about the world and his place in it.

A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.

A young boy tries to help his parents make money by selling ice cream at his mother's work at a Snow White Laundry. An accident with one of the machines causes chaos and the narrator is forced to leave.

Two men from the same small town share stories about a pivotal moment from their past, revealing a decades-old coincidence that explains their drastically different paths.

Workers at an American franchise restaurant located in southern China learn of the different ways American capitalism exploits them and creates food waste, leading them to rebel against their bosses.

An American vacationer in Italy slowly convinces a fellow American of the benefits of rejuvenation, chipping away at the man’s engrained business mindset until his wife objects.

On the Great Plains, an aging farmer and his wife struggle to sell their produce amid an increase in frozen food manufacturing. The farmer must figure out how to avoid the fate of his neighbors, who were pushed out of business and into welfare dependence.

An industrious journalist who makes a living spreading fake news during Trump's first presidential term receives a rude ethical awakening when one of his colleagues is accused of criminal acts.

The monotony of an accountant's life seems to be broken when he is interviewed for his favorite newspaper section.