Debt Basement

This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.

There’s been a steamin’ heap a palaverin’ lately about that dad-gummed debt ceiling what’s got everybody so jumpy.

I do intimately understand what it feels like to run out of the do-re-me, with assorted service providers threatnin’ to cut off my essentials in no uncertain terms as described by letters delivered in those pretty pink envelopes, stuffed into my armadillo mailbox.

Now if I was the guy or gal who had to pay the bills for the U.S. Government, I can only imagine what it must be like to get a phone call from some angry Chinese guy who will not take “无” (no!) for an answer. I reckon it might be kinda hard to explain to this Oriental knee-cap breaker why you’re late on the payments when, on the other hand, you spent about $250,000 on some ivy league geek who’s tryin’ to figure out how Americans use the Internet to find love.

Speakin' of bills, may I note that the upwardly mobile cost of water and power has come as quite a shock for me since my uprootin’ and transplantation to Southern California a bunch of years ago from my home in Paint Rock, Texas. The way things are a-goin’, any day now I expect to get a bill for breathin’ air, along with some handy hints on how to cut down on my body’s need for oxygen.

But despite my low wages from lawn care and the big balance on my Sears credit card, I’ve never thought of my debt as a ceiling. I think of it more as a basement, cause that’s where I arm wrestle with my bills on an old teacher’s desk that once belonged to my grandmother by the name of Bessie Lou Allison. She taught me that when the weather turns especially ornery I should beeline it to the root cellar. So my basement seems like the appropriate place to preside over the redistribution of my wealth.

I don’t know why these here boys in D.C. can’t just get along long enough to raise that ceiling. In the good old days all us neighbors would just naturally pitch in to help build a barn. But here we’ve got a big storm a comin’ and these politicians can’t even agree on what kind of barn they need! They’d better get their gal dern hammers out and start nailin’ the gosh dang thing together pretty gal dang dern soon I tell ya.

As for me, I’m gonna follow my granny Bessie Lou’s advice and run for cover. I'll be in the basement, at least ‘til the storm blows over.



~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
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