Hanaan's Diner 2010

Things are not as full of the old joie de vivre  as they used to be at Hanaan's Diner. It's more like a peur de manger, truth to tell: a fear of eating. Across the street there is a sign which totals up the cost of the wars we are waging, the Glorious Homeland Wars taking place around the globe: shooting wars, drone wars, assassinations, and torture.
It is becoming impossible to eat there while watching the nation's money go down the sinkhole. Hank Jacubowski's son-in-law is out of work going on one year, and I see him grind his teeth when he sees that sign flashing its crimson numbers.
"Going to get a rifle... shoot it's lights out!" Hanaan muttered as she wiped the doomsday formica of the table where I sat. I looked at her and made an inquiry with my eyebrows. She pointed at the sign across the street.
"How can anyone eat watching the future go down a ----hole?!"
I saw her point. I mean, 50 to 100 million per day would go a long way to bucking our depressed state of affairs back into the pink. I'd settle for 500 million and spend it on education, health, and doing something about all the "failed" communities that found themselves in 2007 and 2008 in a bad place of being unfinished, and at considerable risk for the future. I suppose there'll be more about that in the future; right now we're too pre-occupied with stories about not doing anything about families losing their homes, the usual family values stories.
We sat there silent and morose, even despite the fact it was Coney Day, two for $3.00. And we, the TYBALTS ( the young bucks at lunch together ) did not even grunt when the ROMEOS ( retired old men eating out ) came sashaying in at noon. Reminded me of an O.K. Corral confrontation between gunfighters suffering from Alzheimer's.
Come to think of it, 50 million a day to cure Alzheimer's wouldn't be such a bad investment.