The conversation today at the Fruit&Produce market&cafe, turned around how far this economic recession is gonna go and whether the worst is not yet to come. I know, these days, nothing original with this, that's about all you hear about, a part from the color of
"Sar-appalling" 's lipstick. Seriously. So the malicious band of recalcitrants that hang out there every afternoon were today imagining the resources we'd have to dig out in the worst case scenario. It went from silly questions like "can the state go bankrupt?" (me) to different ways to survive when the dollar is worth nothing. Among the lucrative businesses to open in the now numerous empty business places in La Conner someone mentionned a tooth extraction business, I imagine with a sign that would say something like "Get your health insurance money back and retrieve your gold" , "Pull your teeth & reclaim your inner gold". We could have a "Tooth Street" in La Conner, that would be the local stock market. Then once extracted and welded, the precious metal would go to one of the pawn shops that would proliferate in town to replace the once wealthy souvenir-antiques-vintage stores for tourists. The town is currently considering putting a billboard on highway 20 to attract more tourists, well they'd better think twice on what they're gonna write on it, for by the time the billboard is on, half the businesses advertized will be closed. It would be certainly more enticing to put an ad for the tooth extracting business.
And then what would we do when the dollar is so low and gas so expensive that no one can afford it? I guess the local gas stations would start growing veggies on their parking lots, the neighboring towns would have to destroy the shopping malls, extravaganza! to put agricultural land back on there to feed hords of hungry people. People would tear down their useless garages and grow their own food, for their own subsistance as well as to survive, since most people couldn't go to work any more, because of the shortage of gas. Those living in condos would squat the deserted malls and turn them into community gardens. The sheriff would patrol the town on bike, or on foot - this is already happening to a certain extent- with torches. They would have boomerangs instead of tasers. They'd be in seventh heaven, no car chases anymore. No speeding ticket, no DIU. They might have to deal with black market practices, though.
Wait, here's the best part of it, since there would be a shortage of energy, no TV's anymore. No computers either. Ouch! We'd have to learn smoke signals. Even preachers would go bankrupt, with no TV to spread the faith. We wouldn't see the faces of our politicians anymore. They'd have to move their asses even more travelling around country to gather votes. And maybe their efforts would be vain, as some local communities would probably find out they're doing better without them, and would cecede. Isn't that what we, the "civilized world" would call CHAOS? What a short but frightening word, that lets you have a glimpse of the monster in the cupboard. I can hear them already, mouthing it with that particular distortion of the mouth, as if to say "cockroaches", they'd say, but... that would be.. "CHAOS" wouldinit?
