Clueless in Seattle (wait – no, that’s New York)

For nearly four weeks now, they’ve been gathering in parks and streets, stretched out in sleeping bags, marching with signs, tooting horns, and banging drums.  They’re American citizens, this ragtag mob, and as such, are perfectly within their rights to assemble and to speak their minds.

The problem so far has been figuring out what, exactly, is on their minds.  “Community awareness,” one woolly-headed fellow said, gazing at the camera.  “Global warming,” someone else offered.  “Corporate greed!”  “Social inequality!”  “Economic inequality!”  Huh?  What?

I couldn’t help but note, as the images streamed in, that in their zeal to stomp out corporate greed, they were dealing a blow to the businesses along the avenue; businesses, mind you, that create jobs and hire people.  Wall Street, it seemed, wasn’t suffering at all.  The “Mom and Pop’s” were.

“If Wall Street goes down,” my financial advisor husband observed, “then so will a whole lot of other people.”  Yes.  There’s that.

“What are they expecting?” said one presidential candidate, “That the Wall Street folks are going to rush out and write them checks?”  Not likely.

Reports coming in have been disturbing.  No one’s showering there.  There’s gratuitous sex in the streets, police cars are being soiled (think ‘human waste’), and drugs are being sold openly.  Which is probably why the synapses of many being interviewed don’t seem be firing too briskly.  Wait.  Maybe it’s the humidity.

Anyway, it’s shameful, that’s what.  This kind of behavior would’ve gotten us paddled as kids.  My mother would never have tolerated such shenanigans.  It would have earned us a serious ear lobe twist with a “Shdop sell aw-gashick,” which is Pennsylvania Dutch for, “Stop these goings-on!”  Or something like that.

This would’ve been followed by orders to “clean that up” and “shick dich kshat awh (act properly)” and “get back to work.”

Hey, maybe I should send my mom to Wall Street.  I’ll bet she could clean it right up, restoring law and order and helping folks down there to find a purpose.

It worked for us.