Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Economics for Cab Drivers
I am lucky to have had some extraordinary teachers in my lifetime. Until tonight, however, none of them had also been barrelling down Lakeshore at the speed of sound while instructing me.
I knew there was going to be trouble when my usual signal of dialing my phone and putting it to my ear failed to elicit silence. Now my friend Sarah has a voicemail from me with a cab driver ranting about government regulation in the background. I also tried having a fake conversation with the dial tone, but that also failed to bring quiet. The lecture was going to happen, with or without me.
So what did I learn? Apparently, the problems with our economy can entirely be attributed to 1) the lazy kids who don't want to cut my cab driver's lawn for $5 per hour, 2) an excess of government regulation over those poor investment bankers who never stood a chance, and 3) the Japanese. Oh, and I wasn't completely sure on how it tied in, but I'm fairly certain that Oprah was in there somewhere.
Sometimes I try to gently shape people's opinions when they accost me with the astonishingly incorrect. In this case it was all just happening too fast for me to do anything. I feel like my brain was in a car accident. Also I'm pretty sure I left my lunch bag in the cab.
I am lucky to have had some extraordinary teachers in my lifetime. Until tonight, however, none of them had also been barrelling down Lakeshore at the speed of sound while instructing me.
I knew there was going to be trouble when my usual signal of dialing my phone and putting it to my ear failed to elicit silence. Now my friend Sarah has a voicemail from me with a cab driver ranting about government regulation in the background. I also tried having a fake conversation with the dial tone, but that also failed to bring quiet. The lecture was going to happen, with or without me.
So what did I learn? Apparently, the problems with our economy can entirely be attributed to 1) the lazy kids who don't want to cut my cab driver's lawn for $5 per hour, 2) an excess of government regulation over those poor investment bankers who never stood a chance, and 3) the Japanese. Oh, and I wasn't completely sure on how it tied in, but I'm fairly certain that Oprah was in there somewhere.
Sometimes I try to gently shape people's opinions when they accost me with the astonishingly incorrect. In this case it was all just happening too fast for me to do anything. I feel like my brain was in a car accident. Also I'm pretty sure I left my lunch bag in the cab.
