The (Fabulous!) Depression

Lange's Migrant Mother: So Hot Right Now?

Hey, remember the economy? It doesn't have glasses or speak in an Alaskan accent, and the last I recall hearing about it was that it had gone deep into FUBAR territory. As far as I could tell, currencies were all over the place, lenders were going bankrupt, and a whole country- Iceland- was about to go tits up, which would really throw the future production of Icelandic sweater patterns and sullen blondes into question. I couldn't tell much more. I started to regret dropping my economics from a major down to a minor. Maybe if I hadn't, I would have the code to understanding all of this, knowing whether it was worth buying while prices were low, or if I should just invest in canned food and a shot gun. Instead, I feel adrift, moved around by people who aren't speaking my language, while I flail around at analyzing navy recruitment ads in a postcolonial context.

The media took care of my fear by moving on to the presidential election and the World Series. Well, all of the media except for lifestyle media. Just check the New York times Style section. Restaurants across the land a feeling the pinch. Apparently, the situation is even so dire that a new portmanteau is required: "recessionista." If that doesn't make you barf, I'm sure they'll come up with an even more ralph-inducing term that uses "sexual" on the end. Destitutosexual, anyone? No one knows he's downgraded from Kiehl's to Suave! Gawker put up a photo album of the newly jobless. The weird thing is that it's all beginning to seem a little festive, like there's a kind of kitschy joy in the bathos of it all. It reminds me of when I used to read Little House on the Prairie and think "Wouldn't it be fun to live like this? Why, I could have salted pork, matching flannel nighties and my very own button jar!"

The thing is, life in pioneer times wasn't all that fun, and I'm just thinking of the dental care. The Great Depression wasn't that much better, although it did have toothpaste. And we couldn't even manage half as well as they did. They were used to thrift, used to having to work. If I ever have to go on the road to find decent work and food, I would probably eat a poisonous berry off of the side of the road after blowing all of my cash on Wendy's. You know what they did to stretch out food on the cheap? Use a lot of eggs and cheese. You know what's expensive now? Eggs and cheese! We would have to live off of margarine and the jars of cheap cocktail weenies at the Dollar Store, and that's a whole lot more intense and less fun than trading the Prada in for a knock off. I don't think this is going to be as bad as all of that, but just in case, I'll be pulling the Grapes of Wrath off of the bookshelf. Maybe there's a special section in there about cooking cheaply I've forgotten.