After weeks of terrifying financial news every day -- The Dow is down 800! The NASDAQ has plummeted 30 percent! Jim Cramer's brain has literally melted! -- I've started to get a little burned out on the whole recession business.
Until it affects my life, it's just not happening. That's my mantra, folks.
Well, mark down Sunday, October 26, as the day the recession officially affected my life. Plunging stocks I can handle. Rising grocery prices are doable. But $4 beers at Zeke's? It's time to push the panic button, dammit!
If you're not familiar with Zeke's, it's the last bastion of sanity on Lincoln Road, a place where -- until recently -- you could choose from more than 100 kinds of beer from around the world for only three bucks a pop.
"It's just a dollar more," you might protest. But that's like saying, "Come on, we've got 50 states; let's just give Nevada to the terrorists." To which I say: No! I will not give Nevada away so easily.
In sum, if you, Barack Obama, are reading this (and I suspect you are), something must be done about the rising price of imported beers on South Beach. America depends upon you.
-- Tim Elfrink
