Reply #137: Grim for me since 2007... [View All]

[Innoma]

My wife is Indonesian, and the first few years of our marriage we went back and forth a few times to visit relatives. But, beginning around 2007, things got so tight for us that year after year we put off the trip again and again, to the point that now her relatives ... from a supposedly disadvantaged, poor, third-world country ... are offering to pay for us, just so they might see us again before we get old and all the little nieces and nephews become middle-aged adults. Imagine that!

You know, in days gone by, whenever things were looking pretty grim financially, I could always count on pounding the pavement in search of a new job that paid a little better, and throughout my working career, the longest I've been unemployed for any length of time was about a week, and the shortest about one hour. Things have been looking pretty dark these past few years, and I spent a good couple of months pounding the pavement again this summer, but this time, nothing. No callbacks, no interest, no deal.

And to think, some of my wife's relatives seem to have this vision of America as being a country with streets lined in gold. Ha!