Over the last week, I have heard various things about the economy/bailout/stock market bruhaha which led me to mumble “Huh, I wonder if this will effect us?” or “I don’t even understand what they are talking about at ALL.”
Let me assure you, these are just rhetorical questions/statements.
Mr. A prefers to hear them as cries for financial enlightenment. He looooooves that shit. He likes to read about it. He does legal business in some of that stuff at his job. He even likes to watch TV shows about it.
And lucky me, he keeps trying to pound information about stocks, investment banks, hedge funds, mortgages and the Federal Reserve/SEC into my very uninterested brain.
“Well, actually, ” he said, “AIG provides insurance to …..” or “In the immediate future, this won’t effect us because our rate on our mortgage…”
I try to be interested, really I do. But the fact is I am NOT INTERESTED. Not at all.
As soon as my brain recognizes financial mumbo jumbo coming out of his mouth, my ears begin to hear “WAH WAH WAH wah Wah WAH wahhhhh.” You know, like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
Then, my eyes glaze over and it is all I can do to keep from shoving pencils deep into my eardrums just to make the “Wah wah” stop.
Mr. A sincerely wants me to UNDERSTAND it, EMBRACE the knowledge, and use it to mold my Future Financial Strategy.
In case you are wondering, my only Future Finanical Strategy involves not getting divorced and encouraging Mr. A to act on his overachieving nature so he can support us both. If left to my own devices, I would just stuff our savings into an old sock and put it between our mattresses. (Yes, I really am Suze Ormand’s worst nightmare.)
Even though I don’t really understand it, the Wah wah wah is going loud and strong this week. It feels like things are going to get worse before they get better. It isn’t going to be pretty watching the country that is based on freedom conspicuous consumption trying to tighten its belt.
Wah wah wah.
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Just a note: I know there is something effed up going on with the comments. They seem to work better in IE than in Mozilla, particularly for the first comment. I will try to figure it out sometime soon.
Testing 123.
Well, it’s definitely affecting us. J had a job offer last month which evaporated with budget cuts. His current office has cut all of their contract workers, which makes him next on the list if they need to cut further. China trip is not likely to happen (though I’m still holding out hope), and I’m not feeling good about spending money on a 2nd car right now-just joined a committee to start a carshare program. The prospect of daycare x2 is making me uneasy.
Of course, we have a 5 years supply of jam and pickled peaches stockpiled ; ) And truly, we are in better shape than many in that we have no debt beyond mortgage. And the house is still worth much more than we owe. Crazy times. ~lmc
Oh my, do I hear you on this.
Ron is a day trader and is 100% immersed in the wah wah wah. And since I worked in banking/finance for more than 15 years, I suppose I should be interested. But it just makes me run away even more. Lately, I’ve been making the mistake of trying to appear interested. This morning, while he was watching Squawk Box on CNBC, I made the mistake of asking Ron what the advantage was to making Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley banks.
WHY would I ask this? Because, of course, he answered. At length. And I had to nod and smile like I was interested, instead of just hearing wah wah wah in my head…
I definitely understand what you mean about the wah wah wah! Sadly I do not have a Mr A of my own to be passionately knowledgable about these things on my behalf, so for the sake of the family I one day hope to have (which family I hope to keep in something resembling lower-middle-class comfort, and to which children I would like to provide the opportunity to attend university, should they so desire) I find myself wishing for a Wah-Wah-Wah/English dictionary, because I have a feeling I’m going to want to know a lot more than I do about all this before it’s over.
Our banks up here in Canada are stridently reassuring us that they’re NOT too hand-in-glove with the US, that all of this will only affect us an eensy weensy teeny weeny bit, and yet somehow, through all their insistent wah wah wah, I smell more than a bit of manure. So I am trying diligently, although far from eagerly, to sort out exactly what it all means.
(of course if I made anything resembling a decent income, I would just hire an interpreter fluent in wah wah wah and be done with it)
I actually do make an effort and try to not convert my husband’s conversation to wah wah as much as I really want to because I’m very interested in planning for our retirment and such…problem is….it all turns to wah wah wah anyway because of my inability to retain dry financial mumbo jumbo. Lest anyone thinks I just can’t retain stuff…I have Poe’s Raven poem memorized so apparently ’tis limited to finacial crap..I mean…very important financial information.
I try to do my part by keeping us to the budget (I’m the bad one that everyone has to come to for approval!) but the bigger stuff sort of just swirls around out there and pours out like a freaking sieve so I understand.
[...] week, Mr. A was paying a lot of attention to the financial news, while I was trying to ignore it all. In a freak occurrence, I happened to watch Oprah last Tuesday. Her guest was Suze [...]