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Besides the Opening Din, the station does business reports every :25 and :55 of the hour, every day. But it seems like every five minutes. I flip on the station to hear weather, traffic or sports and inevitably get . . . (sans din) the business report. (It must be assumed that, in a cosmic quirk of equivalence, those who flip on the station to hear the business reports are getting my weather, traffic or sports.) It seems our economy lives and dies by Wall Street but I, well-educated citizen that I am, have absolutely zero interest in the business reports. All these mysterious indexes seem to run our lives-"NASDAQ" (NSDQ) (National Stock Duds racing team?), S&P 500 (Who won that this year? Earnhardt, Jr.?), the DOW Jones (well, I like to read "Mother Jones"… does that count?), NYSE (is it nice?) . . . I'm sure there must be thousands more. Nuku'alofa Stocks & Sands Exchange… Tuktoyaktuk -600 Wind Chill & Ice Index… who knows. And how did we allow this to burgeon into a health hazard (witness my ears)? People kill themselves over this thing called the Stock Market! And if they don't, they get ulcers and heart attacks and divorced and put away in jail. Shouldn't there be a Surgeon General's warning? But what do I know. I certainly don't know what "futures" are, much less pork bellies. When, in middle-and high-school economics classes, we chose stocks to follow, mine always tanked. I was-and remain-clueless. Oh, I could learn, and I suppose it would be a useful survival skill, compared to, say, catching fish (which do carry health-hazard warnings; just read your state's fish and game handbook.) with bare hands . . . but puh-lease! Give me my conservative little mutual fund for the IRA with my dollar cost averaging deposits, and let me forget about any market that doesn't include "super" in front of it. And give me my gol-danged weather, traffic and sports reports! Hey, you there, listening to the sports report… I'll trade ya . . . . ©May 2008
Nan Jacobs lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and son, a menagerie of pets and a herd of tow trucks. When not "thinkin' out loud", she's vying with the cats for the nearest sunbeam, trying to ignore the call of the wild dust bunnies. (Sloths are her heroes.) Nan's essay, "Word Games", is published in "A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Autism" (Adams Media, 2007) and a short story, "Twilight Whispers", will be available for download from http://thewildrosepress.com in time for the Christmas holidays in 2008. Please drop in and visit Nan at http://nanjacobs.com Send Nan a message either directly or using the Word Catalyst feedback form. |
Cheshire Cat
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