My Share of the $700 Billion American Bailout

$700 billion of hard-earned tax money going to bail out greedy bankers, investors, and other assorted dumb fucks, and what do I get? Here's the answer: a $5.00 VISA gift card. No shit.

As I made my daily trek to the local Starbucks this morning, there were three young women on the sidewalk handing out what looked like handbills. I get enough of that walking around in Las Vegas, I didn't think I would see that here. My reflexes automatically turned my eyes downward and I kept walking forward instinctively ignoring them.

"Wachovia Bank is giving away $5.00 VISA gift cards! All we ask is that you read the enclosed material," chirped the young woman as she shoved a gift card at me.

No way. Nobody gives away $5.00 for nothing. Despite holding a $5.00 gift card in my hand, I was still suspicious of its worth. There MUST be a catch like needing to fill out some god-awful, lengthy survey requiring every detail of my life from birth until present before getting the gift card activated by calling into some telephone maze hell only to have a remote telephone robot telling me my card has been AK-ti-VAT-ed in that annoying mechanical voice after entering in my 18 digit VISA card number for the 100th time.

I walked into Starbucks and held up the card to the clerk. "Do these really work, or is it some stupid scam?"

The clerk gave me a half-grin-half-smirk as I'm sure he had heard that 100 times that morning already. The gift card really did work.

As I left Starbucks with my grande, non-fat, peppermint mocha I walked past the three young women handing out $5.00 gift cards and thanked them for my portion of the massive government bailout money. They all snickered.

Executives and others are getting obscene bonuses and other compensation. People who can't add 2 + 2 are getting forgiven for their mortgages and bad loans. Here I am with my share of the government bailout -- a cup of coffee.