Who Knew? Saving is Now <em>Popular</em>

"Now that savings is POPULAR?" My partner and I opened the paper to find this ad. The catering company should be very pleased (and relieved) that I blocked out the company name. I am simply trying to make a point.

One quick thing before we grapple with the hubris of suggesting that savings is popular. Is it me or is their unique selling proposition here that if you want to save money on catering, rule #1 is to invite fewer people? Or maybe smaller people? I see a reality series. "Little People, Little Dinner Party."

But I digress. Let's get back to the popularity of savings. Let's think about all the other things that, by extension are now popular. Hmm. Let's see. Getting laid off must now be popular. Waiting on line at a soup kitchen. It must be popular to stare at your retirement nest egg and burst into tears. The terror someone feels knowing they can't afford health insurance or their rent or their car payment -- getting more and more popular with every single day.

Shame on FILL IN THE BLANK Catering Company.

Maybe what the catering company meant was that savings has become critically important to every family in America. Maybe what they meant is that every parent should be working hard to teach their kids how to save money or better yet, how not to waste money. Maybe what they mean is that prudent spending should be a core value in this wasteful country of ours and that if it had been, maybe our economy wouldn't have fallen down around our ankles.

Or maybe what the catering company really meant is that people should make their own damned barbeques for their friends (regardless of the number or size of them) and not hire catering companies at all.