Silence of Lucky

The current financial situation, along with 47 days of sobriety, has caused me to take stock of my own financial situation. And I have come to the conclusion that I am broke. No money. When I was 16 years old and babysitting, I had more cash on hand then I do now at 30. If there was a situation that arose tomorrow, and I needed money for it, I would be screwed.

I don't think I am the only one. I am convinced that the current crises is being exacerbated by the fact that everyone is broke. If people are foreclosing on their houses, there is no money in the kitty.

This isn't 100% Wall Street's fault. If we have no financial discipline in our own lives, how can we be shocked when people in positions of power don't have it their. And how much less afraid would we all be feeling if we had 6 months of emergency expenses saved which is the first piece of advice given by any decent financial adviser. We're all too busy buying new flat screens or going out to dinner every night when the economy is good that when it's bad we freak out of government has to step in and bail us out.

There will always be financial crises, and next time let's all be a little more prepared.

Our economy is tanking.  Oh no!  Are we all peeing in our skinny jeans?  Do we have our Calvin Klein Boxer briefs in a wad?  Are we hanging ourselves with our Burbury Scarves?  Is it time to batten down the hatches of our vacation homes?  Has your IRA dropping been a tough pill to swallow with your morning venti frapacino?  Are we cutting out basics of life like HBO and Showtime?  Have you been watching Congress bail us out on your 60 inch, Flat Screen Blu Ray?   Time to take a break and forget about it all?  Time to go to the Alps, or Paris?  Of course you're on a budget now, so someplace more modest- Cancun?  Just like troubles in the past, you can always count on our savior, the Holy Trinity, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to get see us through.

I was in church last week and a girl in front of me had a t-shirt on "The Forbidden Fruit Tastes the Sweetest." And all I could stare at was her shirt.  Who is this person who looked through her entire wardrobe and figured the best shirt she could wear was a mocking send up of the very act that got us all kick out of the Garden of Eden.  If it wasn't for that forbidden fruit we'd all be in paradise walking around naked.  And here she is making fun of that on a t-shirt in church.  Unbelievable.  What are some other shirts she could wear?

Jesus Died for My Sins and all I got Was this Lousy T-Shirt

I Survived Jesus' All You Can Eat Fish Buffet

Jesus is Coming- Look Busy

Mary is my Homegirl

-I saw that Coors is the Official Beer of Nascar.  How can an activity that involves driving 180 mph have an official beer?

- I get so embarrassed if my credit card is declined.  Like the seventeen year old at the cash register is going to judge me and think I'm a loser.  I always pretend like I was expecting that to happen.   "Thank you for checking that for me.  I needed to make sure it wasn't still working.  This is the one I wanted you to use.  That one has been declined too?  Great. That is good.  It's probably because I'm shopping outside of my zip code.  My bank is protecting me.  Can I write you a check?"

-I have a friend who is a scientist, and he's always giving me too much information on things.  He said to me:

"Do you know dandruff is actually a fungus eating away at your scalp?"

and I said:

"No more Parmesan cheese for me waiter, thank you."

While that is incredibly disgusting, it is also a brilliant marketing idea for Head and Shoulders.   Just say:

Head and Shoulders-Fungus is Eating You Scalp.

I have several part time jobs. One of them is tutoring. When I tell people this they usually ask me what it is I tutor and my response is- they're middle school kids, whatever they're doing, I just figure it out. Smug- yes, overconfident-yes. Now these kids aren't dumb in the least. When I was a kid if you had a tutor it meant you were in danger of being held back. It was a sign of shame. Like "you need extra help with your school work? Dude, this is South Carolina. It ain't that hard." On the Upper East Side of Manhattan, however, if you don't have a tutor it means you're poor and your parents don't love you.

So this year I have a brand new "client." He's in the eighth grade and his parents are very wealthy. His mother is a wonderful woman, very excited about her son's education. She informs me that he is going to need some extra help in math. Great.

My math career in school could easily be defined by the phrase "when am I ever going to use this crap?" I was one of those people who sat in my algebra 2 class and scoffed at the idea that I would need to know quadratic equations. I was going to be a famous actor- if I did need to know quadratic equations, I would hire someone to do it for me. Little did I know a short 18 years later, here I was, in Manahattan, depending on my Math skills to support myself.

So we crack the book and he opens to a section that might as well have been M.I.T level Calculus. I have absolutely no idea how to even start any of the problems on the page. Upon seeing his assignment he rolls his eyes, sighs, and says

"These again."

"Yeah, these," I reply, "I remember these..."

We dive into the first problem, he is doing all these formulas, I am literally just writing numbers on a page and nodding my head.

He finishes, looks up at me:

"Is this the right answer?"

"Well, is it?" I said, hoping to use the Socratic Method to get out of this prediciment.

" I think so ...but I'm not sure."

"Let me look in the back of the book, we used to um, uh, use a different, formula type thing, when I was in school... yeah... let me check in the back of the book."

So I looked at the back and the kid had gotten the answer right. Fantastic. So I put out the most scholarly airs I could muster and I said to him:

"You got the answer right. Good job. Now I want you to pretend like I don't know how to do this problem. Pretend like I have no idea what's going on...and show me exactly how you got that answer. And speak clearly and directly into this tape recorder."

And without skipping a beat, he says:

"I knew you were going to have me do that."

I looked like a brilliant tutor. And I figured out how to do the problem. I felt like a total genius. Until, problem number 2...