Count your blessings.
Sure, your portfolio is in the dumper, your house is now worth what you paid for it 15 years ago, and you're No. 127 on Wal-Mart's waiting list for greeters for the 2012 Christmas season.
It could be worse. You could live in Phoenix.
Ah, yes, the Valley of the Sun, where traffic at rush hour apes drive times in L.A. and they talk about 109 degrees as a cooling trend.
But that's not why I'm dissing Phoenix at this juncture, as the politicians like to say.
And say. And say. And say.
My friends, as another politico is wont to wax, you haven't lived political ads until you've seen the slop served up on Phoenix TV.
Once you do, you will fall down on your knobby knees and kiss your TV screen every time a Tim Bee, Gabby Giffords, or save-our-payday-loans-and/or-marriages ad pops up on the telly.
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Here, we may be subjected to, oh, nine or 10 political ads an hour. In Phoenix, they churn out that many during every commercial break.
I kid you not.
Last weekend, we were up north, where our local cable provider offers only a Phoenix feed.
Which means we got a heavy dose of shootings, freeway pileups and near-drownings, delivered by the usual over-nipped, tucked and moussed talking heads.
That we can take, figuring, what the heck, we're looking at Tucson TV 20 years down the road.
What is hard to swallow, however, is the relentless stream of political ads right now β one after the other and often supporting opposite views.
First we see Candidate A, dressed in denim and hobnobbing with ordinary folk over at the county fair, while the voice-over croons approvingly about how Candidate A took on the special interests and how "he'll fight for you in Washington."
Sounds good.
But then, lo and behold, not 60 seconds later here's the same guy popping back up on the television screen. Only now he's wearing a shiny suit and his face is pasty white and slightly sweaty.
Say, could it be from all that fighting for us in Washington? Hardly.
For this time the voice-over β usually a disapproving female β ticks off a list of no-no's, ones involving higher taxes, lobbyists and Washington insiders.
So now we're really confused. Is he a good guy or a bad guy? No time to dwell. For along comes another set of ads, pro and con, this time for a female candidate.
One ad paints her as a progressive who'll β stop me if you've heard this before β fight for us in Washington.
Right behind it gallops the rebuttal ad, stuffing her deep in the pockets of those danged special interests. And, yes, there's that disapproving female voice again.
Where do they get these dames from, and why do they all sound like Mrs. Smithers, your second-grade teacher who once caught you throwing a spit wad across the room?
Trust me. Somewhere, big bucks have been spent on research that determined that you would never, ever vote for someone Mrs. Smithers disapproved of.
One can only wonder what these ladies will do after the election.
Perhaps they'll go back to hawking discount furniture stores and appliance showrooms.
We can hardly wait.
