Wednesday, March 25, 2009

"Where's My Bailout?"

"Where's my bailout?" said Cranky Boss Lady to the (long-suffering and insanely underpaid) Masked Mom for the millionth time.

For the millionth time, I say, with exaggerated (and not entirely heartfelt) patience, "The theory* is that the bailouts given to the banks and other financial institutions will benefit the economy as a whole in the end--so we're all being bailed out, sort of."

Cranky Boss Lady says, with a whine for crap's sake, "It's not fair."

I lose it. "How old are you? Didn't you just turn 58?! Can you really be walking around expecting the world to be fair?!"

Seriously--you know what's not fair? Being trapped in a truly dead-end job with a FIFTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD boss who is still wounded by the unfairness of life and being trapped in that job at a time when the economy is so crappy that I feel lucky every day to have even that job.


*Note that I am not defending the theory. Neither am I pretending to fully understand the forces at work in high finance or in the federal government.

5 comments:

  1. Hmm. My personal favourite would be my 120-year-old car mechanic who keeps telling me (or my chest, rather) that he's looking for a little "stimulus" for himself. To be taken in the form of my foot in his ass, much to his dismay....

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  2. Yeah--the word "stimulus" though technically accurate has led to all sorts of conversational adventures.

    I read an article in Time, I think (might've been Newsweek, not that it really matters) about the tough decisions being made about how to spread the pay-outs around. Some expert was quoted as saying, "Unfortunately, not everyone will be equally stimulated."

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  3. second niece4/5/09, 9:50 PM

    every time you write something about cranky boss lady... it makes me wonder if cranky boss lady ever happened to stumble upon your blog with out knowing or figuring out who you were... what exactly she would think of cranky boss lady.

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  4. You have hit upon a key to the extraordinarily high levels of annoyance CBL is capable of inspiring in me and others. I have no doubt that she would find Cranky Boss Lady extremely annoying (as do we all), but she would not see a single thing she herself had in common with this self-centered and deeply annoying woman. She is simply the least self-aware person I have EVER met.

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  5. Incidentally, she knows I actually call her Cranky Boss Lady on the blog. And Cranky Boss Lady is actually nicer than some of the things I have been driven by her horrible habits to call her to her face.

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