What was that all about?!!! I dunno about you gals, but as them banks started going bust last week, I felt more scared than a Guetamalan at the border post gettin' his pants sniffed by a beagle. It was worse than JFK dying and 9/11 and Princess Diana being killed by that drunk driver and JR bein’ shot and Ronnie Reagan getting Alzheimers, all at the same time. There was everyone talking about a new Great Depression and how Bob won’t have a job for the next decade, an’ all because them immigrants and African Americans took out mortgages they couldn’t afford and got foreclosured on. I tell you, gals, here’s the truth – American Capitalistism almost stopped working last week. We were that close to being taken over by the Russians and doin the Hail Mary to Fidel Castro and Karl Marx and John Lenin five times a day. It don’t bear thinking ‘bout.

Course, I don’t pretend to understand how we got in this mess, what with all them derivatatives and hedge funds and all the bad guys selling shorts and stuff. Seems to me like a bunch of not-so-smart guys gambled on things they didn't really understand and got it wrong, a bit like we did at Vegas two years ago, only they bet on mortgages and we bet on number 32 on the roulette table. We all lost – I told Bob we should have gone for red evens. Anyways, next thing we know, the insurance companies and banks start going bust, everyone's buying each other, and the Bush administration gives Wall Street $700 billion that'd be much better spent on nuking the Iranians and supportin' our brave boys fightin the waronterror. 

Course, what really gave me heart palpitations was when Dee calls to say she’d heard Washington Mutual bank might be in trouble too. Now Bob and me don’t have a lot of savings these days, what with the Hospital costs for Beth’s stomach stapling and the legal fees over his little problem with the girlie pictures, but what Money we do have is in WaMu. They keep Telling us it’s insured, but what we wanted to know was – who’s gonna cough up if all the frickin’ Insurance Companies have gone bust? So we decided the best thing we could do is take our money out and keep it somewhere safe. That way, if we really are at financial Armadillo and the whole system comes crashing down, at least we won’t have to worry about queuing up at the ATM to get our cash out. We ain’t telling anyone where the money's stashed, of course, but if I palpitate one time too many and keel over, maybe one of you gals can remind Bob to take a quick peek in the brown shoebox hidden under the pillow in the guest room closet. I ain't saying no more than that.

So now things have calmed down a bit, the only thing worrying me is the taxes. They said on Fox News that the $700 trillion Bush is payin out works out at $7000 per taxpayer. Course, if the Mexicans actually paid tax it would cost half that amount, but that ain't gonna happen while we've got a bunch of liberal homosexualists running Congress and telling the illegals to use our schools and hospitals like the whole country is one big frickin charity. So what I wanna know is this. Do Bob and I have to pay our $7000 back all at once? And if so, do we get a tax break for Bob’s sciatica?