My Person of the Year

Guess who, behind the bandage? It’s my Person of the Year.

A patient recovering from full-body burn. Bandage off tomorrow.

It’s a metaphor, or more correctly, personification of an ailing economy.

We have all been affected. But kids need shoes and toys.

So Toy R Us is hiring temps for the season.

GM starts its public offering after a round of public bankruptcy court, and public funding.

Wall Street tries to recoup year-end money, while Main Street digs out Made-in-China Christmas trees out of the basement. As the ornaments get unwrapped, our patient is getting his bandage off.

It will be bright. Way too bright for someone who has been in the dark for so long.

The recovering process will not be without pain. First few steps will be unsteady. He may even want to sit down, to regain some composure.

Graphically speaking, it reminds me of the girl with a dragon tatoo, book 2.

She was shot, and buried alive, but managed to use a smart phone to scrape off the dirt and to eventually climb out from six feet under.

I had a cast on my left arm once (too much Hapkido kicking without proper training).

While I was itching and with hair grown underneath the cast, I used my off time wisely. I learned English idioms.

American have largely put off spending, and cleared out sizable chunk of debt.

This holiday season ushers in early Black Friday.

Car sales, toy sales, winter-wear sales, and underwear sales.

But our patient will be taking careful steps through the door.

There won’t be the running of the bulls through Walmart door as a few years back in Long Island. And the one job I don’t want to take, even with health insurance, is to work as the night shift guy who is in charge of opening the door on Black Friday.

Who knows with all that pent-up rage, our off-bandage patient might want to charge ahead of the pack (revenge of the shoppers). Worse case, he is back to the hospital, applying bandage on, after bandage off. This time, it’s his choice. His injury was entirely his own doing, not Madoff’s and company.

You see, my Person of the Year, is the intelligent consumer, not sub-prime mortgage

loan applicant. Behind the bandage, there is a brain. And there is no bubble in it.

I wouldn’t vote for a dumb-and-dumber to be the Person of the Year. Unless he for me:)