Hey everyone, get out your party favors and hats, it’s time for another recession!

Okay, so maybe you can skip on the party favors and hats…and, cake and ice cream, and don’t even think about buying take-home treats.  Who has enough food to go around anyways these days?  No, it’s no 1929, welcome to 2008!  So, where does the soup line start around here? (Looks around)

Alright, so it probably won’t get that bad, but I’ve been reading articles all day, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the Dow Jones will have to fall 6000 more points, and the housing market prices will have to fall by 50% before this recession corrects itself, otherwise we can all say buh-bye to our 401K.  And, for those who are lucky enough to just be out of college and just starting our 401K, we can say HURRAH FOR CASH!

I personally am considering becoming a hippie, but then I look at my finances and realize:

LOL.

Eh, scratch that idea.

So this past weekend I visited where I used to work at Illinois State University (ISU) and my parents house.  It was actually a really relaxing weekend overall.  Then, when I was driving home I saw a bunch of cars all over the side of the road. Not all at once like a car wreck or something, but every mile or so there would be another car on the side of the road.  It didn’t take very long before I realized what they were all stopping for:

And, that is just with my cellphone.  It felt like a scene from a movie:  I’m driving down the highway, and I see a Mustang up ahead - parked, alongside the road.  A woman is leaning against it, away from the traffic, throwing what looks like fruit snacks in the air and catching it like popcorn.  A guy is lying on the hood, his hands behind his head, facing the sun.  The sunset was so beautiful yesterday.  Not even a truck could ruin the sight:

This is actually my favorite picture, truck and all.  I like it because you can see the reflection of the pure darkness in my side mirror.  Just forget about the fact that it looks like I’m have a SEIZURE while taking that picture, obviously, I was driving so I couldn’t line it up- ah well.

I only wish I would have left slightly earlier from my parents house, so that I could have got a picture of the sunset as I went past the HUGE wind farm on my way back.  Unfortunately, by the time I got there all you could see was the blinking red lights in the darkness, signaling to any aircraft that there are windmills present.

Oh well.  I don’t know what everyone is getting so upset about for this market thing.  I’ll just be wheeling my coworkers in on wheelchairs at this rate in 15 years or so - no big deal.

I’m just going to sit back, relax, ride out this market, and hope for another beautiful sunset tomorrow.

The single bell on a string bangs harshly against the glass to signal my entrance into the local liquor shop.   Hey, it’s the weekend; I’m entitled.  The click my heels make seems magnified in this store.  I wasn’t even home for an hour and didn’t even change, from my business-casual work clothes, before I decided to make a liquor run.  I pick up my favorite flavored drink: Smirnoff Ice.   A 12-pack is necessary for this weekend, I decide.

I go to the front of the store and watch as a man stumbles into my peripheral.

“I here first,”  He slurs, cutting in front of me.  I step back suddenly, the mans’ breath reeking of rum.  He slams a 30-pack of Budweiser beer cans onto the greasy counter.  “Ring it up!”

The guy behind the counter is young and built.  He grunts in reply.

“Come onnnnnn,”  The drunk guys says, swaying.  He’s wearing a suit, well, partially.  His necktie is dangling off, threatening to sink to the floor, his shirt if halfway undone in the back; his leather belt, looping gracefully around his waste, is the only clean thing about him, remnants of this morning, I guess, so very long ago.

“How are you doing there Ed?  23.80″, The cashier says.

“Fine,”  The drunk guy says shortly, handing him the bills he had out.

“1.20 is your change”, The cashier says, “Don’t go drinking that all at once, alright?”

Ed laughs weakly and picks up his box of beer, stumbling towards the door.  He’s on the wrong side of the door, so it doesn’t open right away.

“Dammit,”  Ed shouts, trying to pull the door in.  The sign right where he is pulling glows in the setting sun, ‘PUSH’.  “Dammit Josh you gotta’ fix this damn door sometime!”

“Mhm,”  The cashier, Josh, says, motioning me forward.

“Isn’t that illegal?”  I blurt out after Ed makes it successfully out the door, his fourth try.  I place my own box of beer on the counter.

“What is?”

“Giving alcohol to a clearly intoxicated person,”  I deadpan.

“Oh, him?”  Josh says, laughing, “That’s just Eddie-boy, he comes in here all the time.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to sell him alcohol when he’s like that…”  I say, pulling out my debit card.  I tap it on the counter, thinking.

“He’ll be fine,”  Josh says, looking for a minute like he is worried about dear old Ed.  In the next moment (maybe it was a trick of the light), a shadow passes his face, the feeling is gone.  “Besides, he’s good for business.”

I frown, looking out the window.  I watch as Ed has trouble opening up his trunk to put his beer box inside.  If anyone should not be allowed to drink, it’s this guy.  The license plate on his silver Lexus gleams brightly as the drunk guy backs out and heads north on the main road; I notice the numbers and try to remember them.

“Hey,”  The cashier, Josh, says, bringing me back into the store.

“What’s the total?”  I say, whipping out my cellphone.

“I already told you,”  Josh says, sighing.  He tells me again.  I hand him my credit card and dial 9-1-1.

“What’re you doing?!”  Josh glares at me, watching as I dial the numbers.  He looks at me, panicked, “You aren’t reporting me are you?”

“No,”  I say immediately.  Honesty is the best policy when the guy you are talking to looks like he wants to crush your cellphone into a million tiny pieces.

“Oh,” Josh says, looking more relaxed.

“Nine-one-one what is your emergency?”  A womans voice says smoothly.

“It’s not really an emergency, sorry,”  I say, inventing wildly, “I would like to report a drunk driver.  He is swerving in and out of lanes, I’m about to turn off the road to get to my house, but he is heading north.”

The operator asks what street, and I tell her.   I give her his license plate number as well, along with an intersection a few blocks north of here.

“Thank you for this information, we’ll take care of it from here,”  She says, and I had a strong urge not to say, “No, really?  Are you sure you don’t want me to tail him and try to pull him over?”

“Great, now Ed won’t be back for weeks!”  Josh says immediately after I hang up,  he looks genuinely upset.

“At least he’ll get to sleep it off,”  I say sarcastically.  Josh breaks into a grin as he swipes my card through the terminal.

“What?”  I say, putting my cellphone into my purse.

“It’s ironic, really,”  Josh says, looking at me as if seeing me plainly for the first time, “It’s ironic, that you would call the police on him, I mean, most of the customers who come in here look like, well…like you. And all of them are drunks, too.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,”   I say, shrugging as I adjust the sleeves of my business casual shirt.  Josh hands me my card - the transaction is over.  I pick up my flavored beer and walk towards the door, my shoes clicking with every step as I walk over the threshold, and into the night.

Who knows, maybe Ed was thinking of getting drunk and beating his wife, maybe he is just a lonely alcoholic looking to relive his party years.  Maybe he has kids who don’t talk to him.  Sure, it may have been inappropriate of me to call the cops on him, but I like to look at it as helping a potential victim of his if he were to run a red light or forget to stop at a stop sign.  Who knows.