In these economic times, do you find yourself using the phrase "in these economic times" approximately 1,597 times a day? Do you find yourself chirping "...in these economic times, in these economic times, in these economic times..." like a drunken and deranged parrot who deserves a firm smack across the bill from his master? In these economic times, do you sometimes think that your wife is having a Grand Mal seizure only to discover that she, yet again, is starting a sentence with "In these economic times..." as if a teleprompter-dependent local news anchor from Omaha has snatched the very soul of your life partner? Kids, are you about to Google "how to make Daddy sleep forever" if he says "in these economic times" even one more time while shaking his jowls like Larry Summers?
Alas, these kinds of economic times demand that we talk about the current economic times like economically depressed and stressed people have never talked about economic times before. While practically nobody knows just what the hell they're talking about, many experts submit that the best way to make it through economic times like these economic times, is to, in any conversation, hearken back to whatever economic experience you may possess, no matter how feeble or fleeting. Perhaps you were an Economics minor, the Treasurer of a school bake sale, or once scared strangers into dropping spare change into a plastic Taco Bell cup by lumbering into their personal space on the sidewalk. Maybe you were the CFO of a small neighborhood lemonade stand. Think hard...did you once save receipts in your wallet and then throw them out in a single bunch every few months? Have you smoothed out a dollar bill before feeding it into a vending machine or tucked one gingerly into a stripper's thong? Filled out an $5 NCAA office pool? Tens of thousands of dollars in debt? Have you tossed a penny into a water fountain? Opened up your daughter's piggy bank on the kitchen table in desperation or photocopied $20 bills on your laser printer in moments of extreme panic and disillusion?
Point is, we're all qualified to talk about these economic times like a blowhard professor with a booming voice and a raging ego because we all have some experience with obtaining and spending money. Really! You might as well buy a tweed jacket, horn-rim glasses, and a silver wig, because you've been approved to pontificate! We all have something to say about the flow of global wealth and the steps we're taking to personally deleverage and recapitalize our ING Orange Savings account equity stakes. And the way we talk about money in these economic times is to start off conversations with a declarative sentences that show how wise and frugal we actually are. For instance, "in these economic times, instead of buying replacement razor heads so expensive CVS assigns a Hells Angel to guard them, I've taken to shaving by scraping a pair of children's scissors across my face." True? Technically, nyet. Evocative of the humility and hardship I'd like to project in these economic times? Absolutely! And don't say, "I'm only filling my gas tank halfway because I can't afford a full one." Try... "these economic times demand that we demonstrate courage, fortitude and down-home American moxie and as such, to reduce our dependence on dirty fuels imported from the Middle East and to shore up my cash position, I now cut my engine when entering the garage at work and coast into my parking spot...an act that's necessitated, quite frankly, and quite, quite, really, truly and very, very honestly by these kinds of economic times (that is to say, the kind of economic times we're experiencing right now)."
Now you're talking!
While talking about these economic times with such bedeviling insincerity will probably cause you to pee your pants once or twice in shame, I urge you to take these economic times head on. Keep talking about them in the kind of vague, cliché-ridden, phony business-speak that got us into these economic times in the first place. Because there is nothing to fear in these economic times except the cessation of blabbing about these economic times ad infinitum to fill the uncomfortable, seeping silence that indicates just how hollow the depths of our souls really are. But don't despair. In these economic times that "nothing" that's firmly lodged in the core of your being and your bank account can always be filled with something. In these economic times, for example...
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