The Hose Indices

I start most days pecking away at my keyboard while my husband watches 3 different news shows, toggling back and forth between them. Did I mention that the TV is about six feet away from my desk?

Weirdly, it works for both of us. I make surprised-sounding noises when he comments on the latest news disaster; he lowers the volume even before I finish the sentence, “Honey, can I read this to you?”

This morning, again, the news was all about economic indicators. The ones that prove what we already know: We’re hosed. Stimulus money is getting flushed while unemployment rises and costs for goods, services, health care and housing chew away at everyone’s puny savings and last nerve.

I guess some folks, somewhere, are surprised by the proof offered by these economic measuring sticks. I’m not. My trusty indicators have been spot-on for months.

The Classified Index: I’m an inveterate reader of classified ads. (I’ve had to move that habit online as newspaper print ads have dwindled, alas.) When the usual Christmas-season temporary-help ads didn’t spring up last fall, I knew we were screwed.

Ditto when more ads started appearing for collections work. You know it’s bad when companies that repossess cars from delinquent owners have so much work that they need “spotters” who drive around to find the cars in question, then radio the findings to the exhausted repo guy.

The Thrift-Store Index: When women wearing $190 shoes are pushing through the sweater rack at Goodwill, it’s time to accept that 24-month CDs paying 0.4% is neither misprint nor fluke.

The Panicked Landlord Index: I have young friends in that multi-roommate stage of life who report that in the last three months, the usually interminable lease-application process is moving at warp speed. When we came to Portland a few years ago, getting an apartment was tougher than making it into an edition of Burke’s Peerage & Gentry. Now, if you show up without a visible weapon and your check clears, you’re in.

The Crowded Sample-Table Index: You can’t tell me that the growing number of people lining up three-deep for a free sample of jalapeno turkey jerky at Costco doesn’t mean something.