Politics and Other Boring Stuff

Well, it was all over the news yesterday; the stock market took the biggest dive EVER. My accumulated life savings of $123 is now down to 45 cents. Which means that I will never be able to afford to retire. I’ll be 80 years old and working at McDonald’s to pay for a hip replacement. I’ll have bill collectors knocking on my casket lid to ask me when I’ll be sending in my Visa payment.

I absolutely detest politics. I guess it is a necessary evil though. Every four years I force myself to learn just enough about the presidential candidates so that I can make a semi-informed decision on who to vote for.

I know I should learn more about things like politics and the world financial market. That would make me a better citizen, a more knowledgeable voter, and a more worthy human being. It might make me more popular at parties too. I could make brilliant conversation with people who would stand around me in an admiring circle and nod their heads at all the intelligent points I was making about targeted investment planning and the military dictatorship in Burma. That’d be cool.

But the reality is when I hear words like investment planning, dictatorship, 401k, left-wing politics, IRAs, mortgage-backed securities, congressional caucus, Dow-Jones Industrial, GOP, and government annuities, I just glaze over. What does it all mean?? I have tried to listen to the news and to understand the subjects that are being discussed. I really have. But my brain just refuses to focus on boring stuff. It’s like I’m hearing Chinese words. It just doesn’t get through to my brain unless it’s something that I’m super-interested in.

For instance, if I hear that paleontologists have discovered a new dinosaur fossil in Mongolia, I’m glued to the TV and hanging on every word. I’m so intrigued that it’s all I can do to keep from jumping on a plane to go help with the dig. And I’m fascinated by scientific studies on human teleportation (beam me up, Scotty). I could read about that stuff for hours. I’d like to volunteer my neighbor’s cat for those experiments. And researchers say law enforcement will someday be able to scan a criminal’s brain to see whether he/she is telling a lie. Mesmerizing stuff! Where can I learn more??

But let the Human Resources guy at work tell me that I need to fill out a form regarding my retirement fund and I call in sick for two days and try to pay the janitor to fill it out for me. Politics and investment planning. . . bah humbug.

Advertisement