OUR 5-YEAR-OLD wakes up, stumbles to the bathroom where his mother is getting dressed and says, "Mommy, you missed a good dream."
He thinks we all share the same dream, like a TV show, like a Hallmark movie. I would trade my car for one night of his dreams. To rollick in the wonderland that exists between his flimsy ears.
"This is the funny part, so don't laugh . . .," he says, starting to explain the dream.
My lord what a September, what a dream. Doesn't this month seem like it's been six weeks long? We've spent much of it watching Ben S. Bernanke -- he of the Fed -- stand at the lectern wearing that thousand-mile stare.
Mr. Bernanke may be a fine and decent man, but his very countenance worries me. Guys like me can have slumping shoulders and thousand-mile stares -- it's to be expected. But not pinhead plutocrats with their fingers on the nation's floor safe.
"We need to keep an eye on this," I say while reading the newspaper, my user's manual to the world.
"On what?" Posh asks.
"The economy," I say.
"OK, Greenspan," she says.
Like most of us, Posh is disappointed in the events of the last few weeks. For years, she has tried to spend our country back toward prosperity and failed, though it hasn't dimmed her enthusiasm for the Grove, the Americana or those expensive little shops in Old Town Pasadena.
I call it Posh-onomics. It's based on the idea that a $280 pair of shoes helps everyone, not just her. Of course, if she'd merely pay the cell bill, the Dow would probably shoot up 500 points.
Meanwhile, in this long September, our household budget has been tested like never before. The other day, the "check engine" light came on again in the minivan. Stinkin' car is only 11 years old. Can't the Japanese make anything?
A day later, the government turned down our bailout request. I had assured Treasury officials that, were they looking to purchase billions and billions in bad debt, they could just write me a big fat check right here.
They declined, so now our kitchen -- the place where we tend to pay our bills and worry deep into the night -- has begun to resemble the control room in "The China Syndrome," when all the lights are blinking and no one knows for sure what's going to happen next.
"Who's Fannie Mae?" one of the kids asks as Matt Lauer moans on and on about Wall Street, as if he has an infected toe.
"Remember 'Petticoat Junction'?" I ask.
"No."
