Debt will keep us together

This week’s column will be yet another masterpiece about the recession.

I’m doing this because, as a columnist, you can only write three columns per year about your children without turning lame, and I want to bank those for weeks when the Captain is having a little trouble stirring my creative juices. (This happens occasionally, usually when the Captain’s first mate Rumplemintz doesn’t mix well with other crew members and causes a disturbance on the ol’ poop deck.)

This recession has put Americans through a great deal of hardships — cutting back on vacations and restaurant trips, forcing us to adopt quaint old-fashioned habits like actually saving money and now, worst of all, it’s forcing married couples weary of debates about proper towel placement and the difference between listening and hearing to stay together, instead of getting a divorce and after a decent interval of three months, giving love a second chance by getting married to yet another miserable jerk and repeating the process. (Hint: The difference between listening and hearing is the opposite of whatever you say it is, it’s a no-win question, a Kobayashi Maru if you will.)

According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, they came up with a really pleasant-sounding euphemism for divorce lawyers. Also, the group says new divorce filings are down 40 percent. Apparently, the collapse in home values and layoffs is making it financially unfeasible for couples to split up and maintain the lifestyles they’re accustomed to.

Of course, you might think that a halt in the deterioration of the institution of marriage is a good thing, but once you realize what an impact divorce has on the economy, you might be tempted to think otherwise.

Think about all the attorneys who depend on divorcing couples for their living. What about the therapists who rely on the emotional scars of divorce to provide them years of income at $80 per hour? Consider all the dive apartments and fleabag hotels recent divorcees often move into after losing their homes? What are they going to do when all these couples are staying together instead of splitting? Rent more rooms to meth cooks and hookers? And then there’s the toy stores and dirt bike shops that bank on divorcing parents to sate their guilty consciences by overindulging their children.

Let’s face it, many families depend upon divorce to put food on the table.

Also, think of the little guys who benefit from divorce. Pool boys who, for an additional fee, go above and beyond the normal call of duty and not just vacuum the leaves but also snake the drains of recently divorced women. And what about the bar skanks who depend on recently divorced men in search of companionship to support their drinking and late night Krystal burger habits? What shall these mighty hunters do once the desperate man herd is thinned? There are only so many cosmetology jobs to go around, after all.

Now that the federal government has offered bailouts to the finance, housing and auto industries, why not offer one to the divorce industry? Vouchers should be given to family law attorneys so they can offer low-cost divorces to unhappy couples. Child support should become tax deductible. Family service centers should offer enlightening seminars to better help couples become alienated and dysfunctional such as “Our Money: Yep, That Actually Means Its All Yours,” “Which Way the Toilet Paper Rolls And Other Topics Worth Fighting About In Public,” “Best Places For Cheating: The Wal-Mart Parking Lot” and “Chlamydia: Well, At Least The Name Sounds Pretty.”

According to some folks, the government has been inadvertently promoting policies that wreck marriages for years, just think of what will happen when they actually put their minds to it.

Anyone who actually got the Kobayashi Maru reference seriously needs to get a life, but first should contact Jim Cook at for the Astute Reader Prize of the Week.