Crunch goes the economy, like a wine press, or a trash compactor, and we are all the poor grapes and trash caught in the press.
And the green vintage may be souring such that like Michelangelo in the "The Agony and the Ecstasy" we are thinking: "if the wine is bad - then throw it out!"Besides which, there are an awful lot the guys with the dumpsters either don't cherish the task or won't pick up.
Can't blame them, really. I once did a summer gig with the City of Pueblo Parks Department, shoveling and getting rid of such refuse. It was a sorry task of which I could make or salvage little or nothing.
One sorry afternoon I was left at the corner of Northern Avenue with just a rake and some bags, and told to hoe the weeds surrounding the eight block radius of the Pueblo Public Cemetery.
So I did it.
And here I am again, still hoe in hand, nearing age fifty-eight, and at it again in my own yards where weeds threaten to strangle me, as well as at my ninety-one year old mother's place, where I want to plant a new millennial "Victory Garden."
As for the rest of you: Best get your own wine kit and pickup truck, guys, and gals!
Yes, you can just toss it a whole lot away these days along with all the bankers, investors, and heads of corporations whom we are now thanklessly bailing out. It's OUR CASH these honchos are now spending on what they please, including private capital gains such as bonuses.
Bonuses? I've seen little of that particular phenomenon except on an occasional grocery store coupon or receipt.
The whole shebang of political and fiscal mess, after all, has gone way too far in this sorry, borrow and lend, economy of these United States. It's a global game run totally amuck.
So, have you, my friend, recently checked your credit card balances? Perhaps you've spent hours on the phone and online to discover from what you'll get by way of cash back from Discover, get a glimmer from Citi-Pity-Conglomerate/non-glimmer ate which spans the nation and threatens the world with dilapidation, Chase debased, Wells Fargo (damaged cargo that's actually Norwest re-visited),US Bank (which once loved you but now is thankless and can't be banked on), and Amex (that damn X), just where you stand - if you proverbially can actually stand straight and upright at all financially these days!? I have, almost daily, and been stunned with the results.
Have you compared interest rates, and then anxiously transferred balances?
Have you been reminded for the umpteenth time what clues are offered to get right your ill-remembered password, and then sighed and in time flushed with anger as you nearly put your fist through the computer, as you contemplated just how you spelled the name of your first teacher - and whether or not you used the proper suffix or prefix? And, hell whatever was the name of your first pet?
Hey, buddy and missy, I been there - and done all that!
In fact, I'm still in about the same point in the eye of the global, monetary positioning device location as I seem to have been in dollars and cents for countless years.
And, frankly I see little or NO way out of the present dollar-green morass. It reminds me, as a gardener, of Kudzu in the south of the USA, and Bird of Paradise trees in my beloved Rocky Mountain southwest.
