I Need Tom Joad's Phone Number

Well, it's going to happen folks. I strongly suspect we're about to plunge into a Great Depression. Thankfully, I'm quite experienced at being poor so I think I'll be able to pull through. So experienced at being poor, that last night I had to dip into my savings account to buy a regrettable and disgusting cheeseburger. In regards to getting by during a depression, it'll be weird living like a character out of a John Steinbeck novel for however many years it takes to climb out of this economic quicksand crisis. Better start practicing my pea pickin'.

I must say how extremely grateful I am to have been partially raised by my Grandparents. Both of whom survived the Great Depression as children in large families.

When I was a little lass, spending summers at their home, it would annoy me how frugal they were about everything. From scraping every last morsel of peanut butter out of a jar so as not to waste, to washing and reusing plastic utensils, to saving torn holiday gift-wrap only to re-wrap future gifts for the next year- they proved to be more resourceful than any dingus on "Survivor" today. I fully realize the absurdity of the notion that re-using a spork will help one ward off financial doom, however, the main thrust of my Grandparent's lesson is to truly live by the principle of "waste not, want not" and "the more stuff you have, the more troubles you have." They also praised and practiced the notion of always keeping a little nest-egg in your savings account in the event that the stock-market shit hits the recession fan. I'll admit, it was tiresome hearing their lectures on how ungrateful, spoiled, and wasteful my generation was. Now, I'm absolutely beholden to them regarding what I was able to glean from their wise, fiscally conservative habits and philosophies.

We're living in rock-hard times, ladies and germs. Rock-hard times that are going to force us to ask ourselves, "What and where has all this excessive consumption really gotten us?"

I now refer you to a trailer from a film that says a lot about living life out of balance without having an actual narrative at all:


Ah, "Koyaanisqatsi". You're a brilliant yet vastly obscure masterpiece.