Fistful of Dollars

It's on everybody's mind.

Everybody, man I mean everybody is sweating this thing out. Admit it. As you lean back to enjoy the nightly news your local friendly tv anchor puts on the concern face and explains the latest economic woes to you in the most eloquent 3rd grade language he can muster. As you go to work you can see the concern faces on your coworkers. Everybody wonders what if I don't have a job tomorrow? You go to swipe your card for some christmas lights and you see the concern face on the checker who you know isn't making enough money, and the concern faces on the folks behind you in line who are mentally crossing out names on the Christmas list and recalculating their spending budget.

And you know what, the damned shame is that it wasn't on everybody's mind a few months ago. I mean really, the last time anybody really thought about any financial crisis like this was when we were assigned to read Grapes of Wrath back in high school. And then once that was over, poof! Out it went, never to return.

People like me are children of the Family Ties 80's and the Sienfeld 90's. We do what we want and we spend as we please. Mom and dad's allowance gave way to a cushy direct deposit check from a large corporation every couple of weeks and the only tax was being forced to be chained in a cube for eight hours a day. I would rant about how we take things for granted, about how we fail to save for the future, how we assume everything will turn out all right, how we ignore finances until we start getting nasty phone calls. I would go on a rant, I really would but it turns out I'm the worst offender of them all. My savings are dismal, my income is now more about treading water than anything. Christmas is looking as the bleakest one yet and if we are to believe anything the news tells us, we'll be seeing plenty more concern faces before this is all said and done.

I debate in my head daily if my predicament would have been worse had I stayed in the big city. Spokane is starting to show the signs of the economy that Seattle has not showed yet. My brief holiday excursion took me to the city that I have in memory; all the businesses are still there, the lights are still on, the sushi is still fresh, and cheap beer can still be found if you know where to look. Spokane has not been as fortunate and there are blocks of failed businesses. Some are scattered here and there. Shops and offices are now blacked out windows and faded signs. It reminds me of teeth knocked out of the losing boxer's mouth. Some are close; neighboring businesses going to the great Strip Mall in the Sky together. The carpet warehouse and the tiling showroom across the street before, and now joined in mutual destruction. 'Til death do us part.

At first it was all fun and games. The Lehman brothers spoof of two dudes making out was viral video at its best. When my bank had a different webpage I was alarmed but still making cracks. Now that it's no longer the investors but the folks on the ground who are being crushed, the jokes are fewer and fewer. The list of people I know who are directly affected grows larger.

At least I have the satisfaction in my head that had I stayed in Seattle it really would have been just as bad. Add a couple of hundred bucks to my current rent, add the cutthroat nature of the cubicle culture, add a bar a few blocks closer wholeheartedly ready to run my tab in harsh times and I'd be in the same boat. It's all hypothetical I suppose, but I know myself. It's not the location I'm in, it's me. I'd be the same financial mess anyplace I'd be.

But it's not all doom and gloom really. The best thing that could happen from this is a new appreciation, if even only for one generation. It'd be nice to walk out of this tunnel a little less spoiled and a little more resourceful. It'd be nice to replace financial ignorace with financial responsibility. Real life is a nasty but effective teacher and I'm at the point in my life where I can no longer afford to fail these tests. I know a lot of you out there are as well.

My hope is that my newfound home rebounds from this mess as quickly as it dove in and that the good things I've found here don't become buried by the pure practicality of survival. The vibrant and youthful voice of a smaller town is usually the first to go when things get bad, but it can be the first to return once things get better. Seattle has the pure insulation from financial crisis of size, but it won't save everything. At least here I'll be able to see what off the wall shops open back up in the open gaps in the strip malls. In Seattle, the neon signs just change.

So why are you still reading? Shouldn't you be transferring money online into your savings account right now? Go! As for me, I'm headed to the bar...