The Partner is laughing uncontrollably right now. Bullet train from LA to San Francisco is the cause. The cost of it, the inflated contractor bids, atop the current California budget deficit. To a backdrop of schools being closed and prisons being farmed out to the highest bidder. THEN he starts talking about the next election, 2012 (OMG how did I miss THAT) and the very great probability that the Republican Party will come out of the box with lots and lots of cash. He thinks Dick Cheney will be the next President. This was after he read me an article about Modoc County that made me scream, about how people up there think the budget cuts should be in areas of environmental oversight. Finally I had to tell him to Shut Up. We briefly then fantasized about what the impact might be if there were a disease manifested by an uncontrollable movement of the arm and fist up into the air while the other arm would be compelled to slap down on the rising inner elbow. Fangiullo-ITIS, perhaps? Although my Italian spelling is not so good.
I was already in high dudgeon, Gentle Reader. In virtually the same week, one of my two credit card companies mailed me two disturbing envelopes. One said they were tripling, basically, the minimum payment on my card. Just like that. The other, addressed to MR. (boozilla), offered me another one of their cards for my business. Pardon me, but WTF. I called them to research the possibilities of avoiding trainwreck, and was greeted with a bland banality that reminded me of Hannah Arendt’s definition of evil. These are trying economic times, the guy said. No poo poo Sherlock, I said. They’re way more than doubling the payment, aren’t they? he said. The bank isn’t trying to push people into default, he said. No? I said. It sure looks like it. ‘Splain to me what they ARE doing, if that isn’t it. They need a few more tax deductions? As an Attempted Small Business Owner, where just exactly is the support for MY infrastructure? Blah blah blah. The bank doesn’t have any other programs to address this right now, he said. We’ll skip the part about him telling me what a long time highly important and valued customer I am. If you don’t mind. So this was bad news, in short. Then to get a solicitation addressed to MR!!! Dammit. A lovely little sexist ohyouaren’taman? Invite for me to sign up with them for another bendover. With “lifetime rewards”. I think I’ll pass. And yes, I’ll go last. And time will tell, just who has fell, and who’s been left behind, when you go your way and I go mine. How did Bob Dylan know?
Boozilla: learning to fly one room at a time 