Some people are doing okay but some people are suffering during these times. The president and congress are suffering and the executives are suffering and the office workers and assembly line workers are suffering. The milkmaids are suffering because no one trusts even milk anymore and the ditch diggers are suffering because rich people don\'t need any more ditches. 
The streets are suffering because there is no more asphalt and the wires are suffering because there is too much junk and spam and our eyes are suffering because there is only spam. It grows in the corners of the room like dust bunnies and the broom has lost it\'s bristles.
The inheritances are all gone on frivolous desires and the desires are gone because no one can afford them anymore. The banks are suffering because there isn\'t any more money and the money is suffering because there is just too much of it stacked up around the printing press. The intelligentsia are suffering because they don\'t seem to get it right and even thinking is suffering because there is too much gloom. Las Vegas is suffering because everyone knows the bets are all bad and even the plush carpeted floors around the slot machines are suffering from cigarette buts and crumpled tickets that weren\'t the winners. Even the winners are suffering because they want to win again and know that it isn\'t in the cards.
"Pizza," my wife half blurted and then tried to take the word back as we pulled out of the home improvement yard. Now I have a hard time denying people pizza because it makes them happy. Pizza is a joyful meal; fresh and hot and spicy. How could anyone deny their loved ones pizza, so I swing out towards downtown but I also hold my tongue.
"Why are we going this way?" she asked.
We\'re headed away from the road back home and we\'ve just had a mini, four day weekend visiting friends and going to the hot springs on an unseasonably balmy mid January week.
"It\'s because of some naughty word you used," I told her in my usual confusing way.
"I said pizza!\' she said with a big grin but I still didn\'t want to give in to pizza. I still wanted to hold out on imagining that first bite of hot pizza and imagining the satisfaction in my belly. We find a perfect parking place right on the street across from the pizza restaurant and I must admit that this place has the very best pizza ever. But I\'m still holding back.
"Pizza is supposed to be really high in cholesterol," I say, dropping the bomb on the perfect finish to the perfect weekend.
In fact, we didn\'t go to the gym all week and my wife has been very good at spending time sweating on the stationary bike and taking niacin which makes your skin itch all over from the inside. Anyway, we could just go stand outside of the restaurant with it\'s sidewalk tables like what I imagine a real Italian pizzeria looks like. We don\'t have to walk in.
This is just adding more misery to the already huge pile of misery and I\'m doing it on purpose. There we are under the canopy next to the tables still set with white tablecloths and silverware and I\'m going to make cholesterol the big heart breaker of the night. We don\'t have any health anymore because who wants to give up joy for health and we don\'t have joy because we don\'t have any pizza and we don\'t have pizza because we are long on suffering after being long on the stock market.
"It\'s all in the cheese," she adds but she is hopeful and how can anyone say being hopeful is out of style these days?
"Their pizza isn\'t really cheesy and they even have some that don\'t have cheese at all," I say. Now I\'m working at saving the day, saving the pleasure, saving the fun, saving our hope for the future and we better starting taking up that fun quick because it\'s now 8:30 and the place closes at 9:00.
Mushroom Mania sounds interesting and doesn\'t have any cheese but the Prima is really the best and it does have cheese but its mozzarella and that\'s low fat, isn\'t it? We order a huge pizza, half Mania and half Prima. I eat all the appetizer rolls dipping each bite into fresh grated parmesan. It would be cruel to not give myself that pleasure. I\'ve been on the endless cholesterol battleground myself and I do mean endless. The pizza is great as always.
This war for healthy hearts is not going to stop till death do us part. The health plan is broken because too many people are sick and the people are sick because we have no fun in our lives and we have no fun because now the piper must be paid and we have to go back to work and compete in the office and factory floor and we learn to compete with each other because we compete with ourselves trying not to eat pizza.
Have another slice.
