please stimulate my economy

Yesterday our economic stimulus check arrived. I cannot think of a better reason why the world at large hates the U.S. All across the globe there are famines, droughts, tsunamis, poverty, and mass starvation, and here we are with a government that just HANDS OUT money for us to go spend willy nilly to ’stimulate the economy.’ Whatever. Maybe it will work, but I’m just not buying it, literally. Would I love to go cash that check and then run to the nearest mall and spend it all on a shoes/clothing/accessories shopping spree? Perhaps. I’ll admit that does sound a little bit fun. After all, the FatJ household has been on a bit of a spending hiatus these past few months, since our net household income has been -0- since February. I would even go so far as to say that it would be nice if our own personal household economy could be stimulated one of these days…and the entrepreneurial FatJ himself is working on it. So while we’re in save/cut-back/try not to spend mode, it was certainly nice to receive this money from the feds, but we’re not going to spend it. As decided this morning, it’s going directly into Ryan’s 529 plan. (Well, minus the $36.29 that I spent at Old Navy yesterday. Consider that my economy stimulation). Take that, feds!

Segue to a story about Old Navy… yesterday Ryan and I were at Old Navy, strollering through the women’s clothing section. All of a sudden I hear a woman saying “excuse me!! Can I ask you a question?” and then I look up and realize she’s talking to me. I say sure, and then she proceeds to hold up a pair of pants that look like this, and says to me “Would you call the color of these pants khaki? No, these aren’t khaki, are they? Yeah, they are. No, this isn’t khaki, is it?? Is this khaki?” And I’m thinking to myself what kind of a rock have you been hiding under your whole life that you don’t know what color khaki is? So I say, “um, no, I think I’d call that color an olive green or an army green or something.” And then I point to a nearby pair of pants that are khaki, and say “that color there is khaki.” And then she looks at those pants and says “yeah! Khaki. That’s khaki. You’re right, that’s the khaki color. Thank you!!” Hmmmm. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and call her color blind, but seriously, I thought it was really weird that a grown woman was not able to identify khaki pants. Then again, looking through Old Navy.com’s pants selection, I’m noticing they are using color names such as “koala bear”, “pavement”, “pumice”, and “steel”, so I guess I could see how one might get confused with color selection.

Alrighty- Ryan’s already awake. The sun’s shining. I’m starving. This sounds like a good time to go stimulate the economy with an ice cream purchase.