A woeisme fugue is shrouding my mind.
“I give up.” My wife shook her head as she spoke. A heavy sigh followed. She explained that she spoke to her sister and niece yesterday. The two live in Florida. Both are intelligent and vivacious individuals. College educated. Democrats. Trump despisers. Sis is my age. She owns her own business. Daughter works in sales and marketing. Neither were aware that Trump had just passed his tariffs. Nor were they aware that the stock market had been dropping. They weren’t aware of most of the news that had my wife’s head spinning. In fact, her forty-year-old niece had decided that Thursday was the perfect day to invest in the stock market for the first time.
“My sister is a low-information person,” my wife said. “She’s always been like that. She used to be on top of her business dealings but now she’s moved away from those. She just wants to relax and not worry about things.”
I understand how my wife feels. We were shopping in Medford yesterday. Nobody seemed to be doing any prepping buying. In fact, the shoppers seemed like happy, oblivious people.
My wife had noticed this with her coffee group friends. Most seemed serenely oblivious to what Trump was doing. Several were planning their summer vacations.
“Is it just us and our tribe?” I wondered.
Maybe. My beer group members are acutely aware of what’s going on. It significantly depresses the female members. The male members are grim. But all have worried and wondered, what should we do to prepare?
“I don’t think most people know what’s going on,” my wife said. “And I don’t think they care.”
I agreed. “I don’t think they’ll notice until it hits them in the face. Then they’ll think, hey, what happened? Why is the national park closed? Did you see the state of that bathroom? It’s filthy! They’ll wonder why the water and sky is dirtier. They’ll try to buy a new car and will have sticker shock. They’ll try to eat out and discover businesses have closed, and those that are open will cost a lot more than they expected.”
My wife said, “You said one thing wrong.”
“What?”
“‘Then they’ll think.'”
And the band played on.