Mr. President, I Need to be Stimulated and I Have a Proposal for You

Dear readers, are you feeling stimulated yet? I’m not and billions of dollars have already been spent. In fact, one article I read said that President Obama spent one billion dollars a day during his first fifty days in office. That is $50,000,000,000 in fifty days. And remember, many more billions in bailout were already spent before President Obama took the reins of power. And those in Washington have been throwing around billion and trillion dollar figures lately that make my head swim. Now I don’t know about you, but I really can’t comprehend those numbers because they are so far outside my reality. And if you start talking trillions of dollars, my eyes just glaze over.

So, let’s go back to the $1,000,000,000 a day figure. Let’s try to make that figure a little more comprehensible. That amount works out to $41,666,666.67 an hour, rounded to the nearest penny, of course. OK, so over forty one and a half million dollars an hour is closer, but still outside my reality and my ability to truly comprehend that amount of cash. My first real job loading trucks in a shoe factory warehouse, I earned seventy five cents an hour.

So let me try again. That amount works out to $694,444.44 spent every minute of every day for the first fifty days. Nope, still don’t get it. My first year in the Air Force, I earned $1,200 for the entire year!

One more try. How about $11,574.07 spent every second of every day for the first fifty days? Yep, I have earned that much before. But of course it has taken much, much longer than a second. In fact, if I save every penny of my current Social Security Disability pay starting right now, it will only take me until near the end of this December — eight and a half months away — to come up with the amount spent every second of every day.

So, what do I propose? If you remember, in my post of March 24, I mentioned that I really hate to dust. Earlier tonight, Cheryl said to me that if I didn’t do anything else tomorrow to please vacuum the carpet and do some dusting. I told her I vacuumed on Friday. She rolled her eyes and said something about calling in the carpet cleaners. I didn’t bother telling her I already dusted just before our Christmas party. In fact, I didn’t have a calculator handy for all those calculations, so I just used my finger in the dust on the end table here next to my recliner. But as usual, I digress. My proposal, Mr. President is to send me a small amount of stimulus money and I will hire a maid service!

Now don’t laugh, Mr. President. I bet you use maids in that big old white house of yours! I can’t really picture you or Michelle dusting. Unless maybe you make the kids do it? Naw, I doubt it. Not only would you be helping a poor old man with Cancer (yep, not too proud to play the “C” card when necessary), but you would be helping three ladies every week to put food on their table to feed their hungry children (the mental picture of starving kids helps, too). You see, my daughter once bought us maid service as a Christmas present and when they came they did a pretty good job and there were always three of them. Not only will they dust, but they will vacuum, dust, mop the tile floor, dust, make the beds, dust, clean the toilets, dust, clean the tubs, dust, clean the shower, dust, wipe down the appliances, and dust. In the end, you will make an old man with CANCER very happy, make the wife of the old man with CANCER even happier, make those three maids happy, and fill the bellies of those poor starving children of the maids happiest of all. Wouldn’t you like to see the smile put back on those children’s faces, Mr. President? And, we will be stimulating the local economy because those maids will remain employed and they will buy gas, cleaning supplies, and also spend their money at the local grocery store for those poor starving children. Another benefit you might not think about, but is very real, you will be giving me and my dog more time to watch my favorite morning program, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Yes, my dog, Snickers, comes running to my lap as soon as he hears the music for the beginning of the Ellen show. He knows he will be petted for an hour. By giving me time to watch her show, her ratings stay up and many more people remain employed. Also, I laugh during her show, and that improves my immune system, makes me live longer, and puts more money into the pocket of the medical community as they keep treating me to keep me alive even longer. The possibilities of the far reaching stimulating effect of my proposal are just mind boggling. Why, I might even have time to get hooked on soap operas and I hear they are in real danger of failing.

And how much would this stimulus package cost? Well, like many of my corporate counterparts, I’m not too sure, but just let me pull some figures out of my … um … out of my hat. Let’s say they charge me $100 a week to come one morning each week. But to be safe, we will make it $150. (Congressmen always throw in a little extra to be safe, don’t they?) So, for 50 weeks of the year (I plan to give them a two week vacation), that comes out to … just a minute, I have to go over to the other dusty end table … that comes to $7,500 a year.

I believe in giving my employees job stability so I want to hire them for ten years. Besides, it makes the math easier to multiply by ten. That works out to just over SIX SECONDS of what you have already been spending. Six seconds worth of spending to accomplish all I have enumerated above for ten years! And I promise you, Mr. President, I will not pay myself, my wife, my grandkids, my dog, or anyone else a bonus (if I earn any money I will stop receiving the SS disability). I also promise I will not take the maids to any conferences in Las Vegas. (If I did, I wouldn’t have to wait for the big C to kill me; my wife would take care of that.)

Now you might think you don’t have even that small amount of money left for my stimulus package. But I found it! You forgot, Mr. President, we just went into daylight savings time. That means we moved our clocks ahead one hour. WE SAVED ONE HOUR’S WORTH OF SPENDING! That is an extra $41,666,666.67 I found just waiting to be spent. My amount is pocket change, right? (Hurry dear readers, if you want your share you better claim it now. Once the word gets out it will be gone in, well, less than an hour.)

So what do you say, Mr. President? Do we have a deal? I think my stimulus package is a real bargain! Just have your people call my people and we will work out all the details. And remember once again, Mr. President, you will be making a poor old man with CANCER very happy.