I was sitting in my living room the other day, watching The Godfather and sipping a yummy Cabernet, (both courtesy of the talented Coppola family, thank you very much), when my somewhat ponderous, Ponderosa-sized son-in-law, Guido, lumbered in. And speaking of lumber, a chunk of Pennsylvania’s finest hickory was clenched in his large, right paw.
Cocking my head in his direction, I noted the almost pained expression on Guido’s mug.
“Hi Son,” I said. “Are you feeling okay?”
The young man ran his left hand over his face and gazed out the window.
“It’s just business, y’know?” he said rather quietly as he tapped the bat’s hefty end in the palm of his left hand.
Since I knew he was out of work, the “business” comment struck me as rather odd.
“What business would that be,” I inquired. “And what’s with the Louisville Slugger?”
Guido took a long, deep breath, and continued staring out the window in a sad way.
“That’s the business,” he replied, “I mean the bat. I gotta’ bust up your kneecaps a little bit.”
“Beg pardon?”
I switched off the movie and set my wine glass on a nearby table.
Guido sighed a big sigh.
“Your kneecaps,” he replied. “I gotta’ —
“Yeah, I got that,” I interrupted. “You had me at ‘bust up’.”
I got up from my chair, walked over to the big guy and rested my hand on his shoulder.
“What’s this all about, Son?”
After a couple of long blinks, my dear daughter’s husband turned his gaze from the window and looked at me.
“I need Julie and you should stop borrowing money and spending so much.”
My face crinkled involuntarily as I considered his words a few moments.
“Don’t you have a degree in English Lit.?”
Guido’s mien slowly swiveled from melancholy to puzzled.
“Yeah,” he replied. “What’s that got to —”
“Then why,” remembering my interrupted movie, “are you talking like some guy who trades places with fish?”
The puzzlement remained for a tic’, but then a look of mild relief washed across the young man’s face.
“Oh, that,” he said, smiling, his voice returning to its normal pitch and timbre. “It’s how I talk when I do business.”
I stared at him.
“When you DO business?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he reassured, nodding his head. “It’s part of the territory; talking like that and doing business. Now, can we get back to it?”
It was my turn to gaze out the window.
“Sure.”
“Good,” Guido said as he stretched his taurine neck and shoulders. “Where was I?”
“Kneecaps.”
“Oh yeah, thanks. Anyways, I gotta’ give yours a couple good whacks on account of all your money borrowing and spending on stuff.”
I looked up at the lad. His brow was furrowed and he looked perplexed and sad.
“Do you mind if we sit down for a little bit?” I asked. “I just need some clarification before you get on with business, if it’s all right by you.”
Guido scratched the back of his head with his un-batted hand as he considered my request.
“Well, I suppose we could,” he said at last, “if it don’t take too long. I gotta’ do business, y’know?”
“Of course,” I replied, taking my seat and reaching for the glass of wine.
After taking a long sip, I held the small goblet in both hands and gazed at the dulcet liquid.
“Guido,” I cracked on after a long sigh, “you do remember that you and Julie are presently unemployed?”
“Sure,” he readily admitted. “Except for this business,” he added.
“Right. Business. And you also probably recall that you and your wife, my lovely daughter, live here with me, rent free, in my house?”
“Yup,” came the unhesitating reply.
“Okay. And you remember I took out a big loan and bought that new car in the driveway to replace my old, unreliable and broken down jalopy, so I can get to work and the market and take you and Julie places as well?”
“Yessir.”
“And the fact that I am loaning you both, at no interest, a considerable amount of money for your monthly student loan payments hasn’t been overlooked, has it?”
The big guy rapidly shook his head back and forth.
“You can’t believe how much we appreciate all that,” he responded.
“There’s a good lad,” I said. “And among your recollections, I’m sure my rather well-paid, gainful employment that covers all the bills and buys all the food is rattling about somewhere in there?”
This time Guido nodded his head up and down.
“How could I forget that?”, he acknowledged. “We’d all be starving and living in the street without it.”
I had to smile at his understanding.
“Excellent. We’re making progress.”
I took another sip of the delightful Cabernet, swished it about as I considered my next direction, then swallowed.
“So,” I persevered, “we’ve established that my contribution to our continuing survival is, more or less, fundamental . . . foundational, if you will . . . and that, if it went missing all of a sudden, or was significantly interfered with, we’d all be in some very hot water, very soon. Is that agreed?”
“Absolutely!”
I scrunched up my mouth and nibbled on the inside of my cheek for a bit.
“So why, for god’s sake,” I finally asked, “do you want to bust up my kneecaps? You do understand, don’t you, that I would no longer be able to go to work?”
Guido stared directly into my eyes.
“Yes.”
“Which would mean my income would be . . . how do I put this . . . non-existent, right?”
“Yes.”
“Which means I couldn’t pay the mortgage, or the car loan, or the utilities, or buy food, or —”
“It would work out,” Guido interrupted.
I gaped, slack-jawed and stupid, at my son-in-law.
“What?”
Guido cleared his throat and sat up in his chair, his voice, once again, back to normal.
“It would work out,” he replied, “just like in Europe. Everybody at Fox News says we need to stop borrowing money and reign in our spending and adopt serious austerity programs just like most everybody in Europe has done. They say it’s time to get our fiscal house in order.”
“Guido,” I replied with a sigh that said, ‘Now I get it!”, “you do understand that a government economy is nothing like a family budget, right?”
The young man’s brow crinkled a bit.
“That’s not what the people at Fox News say,” he countered, “and they’re all the time pointing at Europe’s austerity as an example of what we should do.”
I rested my chin on my chest and slowly shook my head.
“The one time those Fox News idiots decide to like anything about Europe,” I muttered under my breath.
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Just making an observation.”
“Well, anyway,” Guido continued, “after hearing about all that, it just seemed like maybe we needed our own austerity program, too. To make everything better.”
I cast a sympathetic, somewhat frustrated glance at my well-meaning, numb-skulled son-in-law.
“And you figured by busting up my kneecaps and collapsing our personal economic house, that would be our very own European-style austerity program?”
The lad nodded.
“It was all I could think of at the time,” he answered.
I took a long, deep breath, and a hearty gulp of wine.
“Look, Son,” I said kindly, “I know your heart’s in the right place, but you’ve got to understand, family budgets and government economies have almost nothing in common. When times are tough, families do have to cut back on borrowing and spending until the tough times pass. But if a government cuts its spending when things get tough, that means there’s less money out there in the economy, and that means fewer people will have jobs, which means more people will have less money to spend, which means businesses will sell fewer things, which means the businesses eventually have to start laying people off because they can’t afford to pay their wages, which means now even fewer people will have jobs, and it just keeps spiraling down.”
Guido thought long and hard.
“That makes sense,” he said, after some time.
“I’m glad it does,” I replied, patting the lad’s knee.
“Now, will you do me two favors?” I asked.
“Sure,” Guido replied with a smile.
“Great,” I said. “Hand me the bat.”
The young man did as requested.
“What’s the other favor?” he inquired.
I picked up my glass, and before taking a sip, looked Guido in the eyes.
“Stop watching Fox News.”
Note: The reader is heartily encouraged to replace “Guido” with “Congress”, and re-read the article.
