Down and Out in Bradenton, FL

well, not really...I haven't become a vagrant or a bum, but I'm tottering pretty close to the edge here.
We were discussing the financial ramifications of purchasing a car over dinner tonight, and like so many dinners before, we arrived at the same conclusion. We simply cannot afford to have a car.

Now that's a very clear statement, but as the intelligent reader knows, there are no absolutes in life; except your birth and your inevitable death. In this case, 'cannot afford' can be whittled down to- "Yes, we could get a really economical car, pay the astronomical insurance charges, maintain it at a cost that makes me want to sell my kidney on Ebay, but at the end of the day, we're clean-bowled out for a Duck."
Life in America it seems, is determined to make us live hand-to-mouth, savings be damned. But that is how the rest of the citizenry seems to live here, even the relatively well-off included. My collegues at work are wont to comment on the emancipated status of their bank balances in the last days before the sluice-gates are opened, and the cash flows through. That's when think of the money I have struggled to save, and it makes me feel all fuzzy and warm inside...that warmth is replaced by a icy bitterness, whenever I happen to be at one of the many temples of consumerism, and I see all the things that I want to acquire....I salivate. I touch. I experience. I desire. I crave. I firmly force my rectal spinchter shut, lock my jaw, close my eyes and kill all want or need, and quietly go home.