The Cost of a Recession

How can you tell that we are in a recession? By the increased number of telephone directories piling up on your porch.

We got one yesterday, one last week, and two in February. On the average we receive 2 new phone books of one kind or another each month. Businesses are sinking that extra dollar into every inch of advertising they can get to bring customers in.

Dickidoo and I are fortunate. Our job security is not affected by the current recession (so far). We are both guaranteed our 40 hours a week. We don't have to worry about where our next mortgage payment is coming from. And so long as the Oompas don't run up the dang cell phone bill again, we should be able to weather this economic hiccup without too much discomfort.

Actually I won't have to worry about the Oompas running up the phone bill this month, or last month for that matter. Last week, right after I finally paid off that humongous phone bill from December and got service restored, my first text message was from the phone company informing me that our bill was past due. As of this morning our service has once again been suspended. Too bad we don't get roll-over minutes. At least we can still receive incoming calls. How else would they be able to call 10 times a day to inform us that the phone bill is over due ? Plus, this way they can still charge us the monthly service fees.

Milk at my store has gone down by about 25% to $2.63 while Coke and Pepsi 12 packs reflect almost a $1 increase to $4.26 - on sale! Gas remains pretty stable for the first time in a while, but I imagine it is just a matter of time before we see another spike. Of all the industries in the world, I still for the life of me cannot understand what drives the prices of oil and gas.

"The cost of oil is going up~ quick, raise the gas prices!"
"The cost of oil is going down~ quick, raise the gas prices!"
"Folks are afraid to fly and want to drive instead~ quick, raise the gas prices!"
"The stock market dropped~ quick, raise the gas prices!"
"The stock market rebounded~ quick, raise the gas prices!"
"It's Memorial Day, Labor Day, Fourth Of July, Christmas~ raise the gas prices!"
"It's Monday~ raise the gas prices!"
"My neice just had a baby, raise the gas prices!"

Anyhow, while luxuries are showing a marked increase in cost, the essentials like milk, eggs, bread and gas are either the same or lower. I shall not panic during this crisis though~ unless the price of toilet paper shows a sharp increase. This might be a good time to look into the feasibility of installing a heated bidet. Or perhaps we can just use a hillbilly bidet. All it takes is a water hose and a blow dryer. No Charmin needed.