In recent days financial expert Suze Orman has appeared numerous times on Oprah, warning that if Americans are not careful, they will end up with no 401(k), no savings, no credit, no car, no house, no mortgage, no loans and reduced purchasing power.
In other words, Americans are in danger of living the way I've been living for the past 25 years. Apparently, even a $700 billion bailout is not enough to prevent us from turning into a nation of me.
What can we expect as we all slowly become me? First, we will all have to find a way to move back into my parents' house. This will be tricky, as there are some 301,139,947 of us and only one spare bedroom.
Second, all restaurants will go out of business, as now everyone going out to eat will pretend to go to the bathroom or ask someone else to "cover me until I get to an ATM" when the check comes.
The FDIC will no longer have anything to do. The recent raising of the insured amount from $100,000 to $250,000 will mean nothing to an entire population that only has $40 in their bank accounts at any given time.
The nation will have to get used to getting its disposable income from something called My Wife's Credit Card. But since she is also turning into me, this option will soon dry up, unless she also gets a wife.
Movies will go bankrupt as the entire country goes to the multiplex early in the morning and then sneaks into movies for free the rest of the day. Although the $470 million earmarked for Hollywood in the bailout might help out for a while.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. However, there is such a thing as free samples. Once you have become me, you will spend much of your time in Trader Joe's, going to the free sample station over and over, pigging out on things like bruschetta and toast and instant ersatz mashed potatoes.
There are many other lessons to be learned from me, but since you will soon be me, you don't need me to tell you what they are. Soon enough, all of me will be sitting in front of our collective flat screen TV that our wife's dad gave us for Christmas, watching Oprah.
Then Suze Orman will appear for the upteenth time, gnashing her whitened teeth, yelling at those of us who have still not turned into me that the economy has gotten even worse, and that we are really in for it--a fate worse than me.