From my readings in the Wall Street Journal and other sages of the financial world, I’m hearing that middle class folks are getting creative about cutting back on their spending.  They are finding ingenious ways to cut corners and save.  Just the other day I heard of a family that plans on shipping their children Federal Express to Disney World this spring.  The teenagers are being shipped in a furniture crate and the youngsters are being mailed with the family pets via the less costly UPS ground.  The family plans to rendezvous in the parking lot of the Orlando Denny’s.  The dad has splurged for a Lincoln Town car.  According to the father, “Yes, it is a luxury and a bit frivolous, but it is a cheap hotel, all things considered.”  He added, “We can park it in the Denny’s and have the kids play in the sprinklers late in the day when it gets too hot.”  The family doesn’t actually plan on going to Disney – they just want to be able to pay for the bragging rights to tell their neighbors that they took the kids to “Orlando.”  People still need to be able to brag like the middle class, even if they can’t pay for it.

American’s middle class continues to have status consciousness.  Ordinary folks are refilling Perrier bottles from the tap right at the grocery store bubblers to cut back on their water bills.  Some have even been spotted filling their Diet Coke cans so they can at least look the part of refreshed Americans.  Chemlawn says it has figured out a way for middle class homeowners to harvest grass salads made from ordinary grass clippings.  They can even have seconds from the yards of their neighbors who have been foreclosed on.  Mortgage lenders get the added benefit of not having to cut the grass on foreclosed properties.  One banker added, “This is something we will have to keep an eye on.  We don’t want people we have foreclosed on to be taking advantage of a good thing.  After all, free salads are an asset we need to somehow collect fees and interest from.”

Ben Bernanke, the affable Federal Reserve Bank Chair, is promising another rate cut today – while inflation fears continue to drive up the cost of everything from Cheerios to infant’s diapers.  According to the easy-going Fed Chair,  “Folks won’t have to cut back so much once they get those rebate checks from the IRS, expected to begin trickling out this week.  We want them to buy TV’s and new refrigerators – despite the fact that they will have nothing to put in them and will only have funds to pay electric utility bills for half the month.  They can have a party of sorts and go back to eating three full meals a day, rather than the light snacking on crackers and Cheese Whiz they have been feasting on for the past eight years of the Bush administration.” 

This gift from the Federal government comes with a slight tax; the government plans to pay for the rebates with a sales tax on humor.  Under the new plan being put forth by Congressional leaders, ordinary citizens will only be able to take their deductions for minor dependents this year if they agree to declare the amount of humor they use each month.  Ordinary jokes will be paid in a line-item deduction and full-blown funny stories, puns or limericks will be given a separate place on the newly designed Humor Declaration form.  America is just too funny.  The strategic reserve of jokes, comedy, skits and slapstick is at risk of being depleted.  Said one government official, “It has taken us since the Great Depression to build up these humor reserves, and we need to keep a stock on hand in case we have a rainy day or another Katrina.”

Plus, the war in Iraq has taken its toll on the reserves.  American soldiers continue to have unlimited fun and enjoyment in the desert at the taxpayers’ expense.

“This just can’t continue forever,” said one Pentagon official.  “I mean, we had such a laugh after that weapons of mass destruction story circulated on the internet, we just had to keep sending fun-loving soldiers over to Iraq to calm things down.  The situation in the Middle East just can’t get any funnier.”

Apparently, people have been having too much of a good time cutting back.  They are just cracking up at the prospect of paying an additional ten or fifteen dollars at the pumps to fill up their cars this summer for family vacations.  Reports have been coming in of the hysterical laughter from people standing at the pumps, unwilling to drive away for fear that the prices will rise while they are standing there.

Gas station owners, however, are having a bit of boom – people are camping out at the stations, using the bathrooms all day long and even buying more of the great service station coffee available there.  Some stations have even had to eliminate their “bottomless cup” policy because elderly patrons just can’t seem to get enough of it.  They are so energized by all the great caffeine that they don’t need health care anymore.  In fact, many are laughing themselves sick over the changes in Social Security and health care.  The cure, doctors say, is simple – laugh less.  The added benefit is that wrinkles and laugh lines will soon be a thing of the past – if we just can learn to cry a little more and be less optimistic about the times.