The Great Obama Depression

Recession is when it happens to everyone else
Depression is when it happens to you.

I can't recall the soothsayer who originally coined this phrase, and frankly am not interested in initiating the exhaustive 2 minute google search to find out. I'm just not that curious. I can, however, attest to the wisdom of the statement, having entered into the Great Obama Depression with my layoff back in February. Fact is, this is a Depression for millions of Americans living in the expanding shadow of the Obama regime.

Since last we spoke, my wife also lost her administrative job due to declining enrollment at the school. Neither of us were interested in donning brown shirts and scouring the neighborhood as census workers for the socialist-in-chief, so that greatly lessened the pool of potential future employers.

Needless to say, we have been economically devasted by these events. You could also say we were highly leveraged, what with tuition payments for one son attending Notre Dame and the other two in Parochial schools (not to mention hockey bills and other necessary sundries). Frank and Dodd's democrat housing scam caused us to be approximately $90k upside down in our house. Did I mention we lost our income? The perfect sh*# storm.

On the positive side, I just dropped off some suit pants to get altered, having lost 25 pounds in the last 5 months. Some loss was due to stress, but mostly I did this on purpose by taking better care of myself and watching what I eat. Besides, government cheese can make one lose their appetite.

The good news is that after months of fruitless attempts at finding work in Flint, Michigan, I expanded my search and was successful in landing a position in Wisconsin. They're lucky to get me, and I feel just as blessed to be going there. Many of my friends were shocked to learn I was sticking with the newspaper industry, but like I've told them, my experiences here have left my sphinxter perpetually puckered. That said, I'm going to a market that is relatively stable by comparison, and to a company that is as strong as it gets in this business. I will be earning about half as much as I was a little over a year ago, but Hillary thankfully sent me a slightly used red reset button, so it's all good.

Also on the positive side is that my middle son will be just down the road in Milwaukee attending Marquette. He is excited about school again now that he will be joing the Navy ROTC program offered there.

So what does the future hold? How should I know, but my plan is to start consuming cheese in vast quantities, washing it down in responsible amounts of Spotted Cow, and kicking butt for my new employer.

Hmmm. Maybe I should have waited on getting those waist lines taken in.

The next few weeks and my upcoming move should prove to be busy, so I probably won't be hanging around this spacious Chattering Teeth office on a regular basis during this period. Once I'm settled in though, I hope to run a vacuum and dust off this blog's counter tops again.