People, a warning!

To everyone out there considering being born. Heads up. I’ve been born.

And I can tell you something about being born; it’s overrated.

Once you’ve been born, people never stop talking to you. And, if their constant yammering wasn’t bad enough, they expect from you the oddest things. Did you know that once you’ve been born, you’re expected not only to stay born, but to deal with the most devastatingly ridiculous things. Did you know this? Too much work, I say!

Consider as evidence: right now we as a country face perhaps the worst economic crisis that we’ve ever faced. Everywhere, people are losing their jobs, houses are in foreclosure, our education system is underfunded, our military is over-funded, our President is, well, you know, we’re embroiled in a war that doesn’t seem to have an easy exit, Sarah Palin thinks being from Alaska is a good foreign policy experience and someone thought it a good idea to make Rock of Love II (or so I hear).

Ridiculous! Devastating! Overrated!

People listen! I urge you! Being born is overrated! Please abandon all thoughts of joining us, the unfortunate previously-born!

Go and do something else. Tennis, perhaps.

Now if, however, you were unsuccessful in preventing the trip through the birth canal, I suppose there are good things that can come from it. There are trees and flowers and sunrises and sunsets and friends and good food and drink and the love of someone with whom you like spending time.

See, all good things.

Let’s form a committee! People Already Born Against New People Being Born.

Where am I going with this? Please read on.

Sometime in the next few weeks Federal Government will inject about 700 billion dollars into some companies who’ve, through one bad decision or another, gone nearly belly up (or are in danger of doing so). The money will save the economy. The money will save companies. And it will save the people who work for those companies. And it will save some of the homeowners who are in danger of losing their houses. The benefits, they say, will trickle down to the rest of us, the previously or already-born.

And all this is paid for by whom, you ask?

The presently unborn. The not-yet here. Those of us still in the ether.

700 billion.

Seven followed by eleven zeros.

That is a whole lot of trickling. And a whole lot of paying.

I am not going to say that this money could be better spend elsewhere, because I think that to be an obvious point. Early Intervention and After school programs need to be created/funded, the health care/social security/welfare systems need revamping, etc.

See? Obvious.

But how have we gotten here? Aren’t we are the most powerful country in this history of civilization? Aren’t we a beacon of hope and freedom the world over?

Of course we are.

But why all the economic problems? Why do we need seven followed by eleven zeros?

Greed? Of course. Capitalism gone wild? Yes. Most likely that, too.

But I know what isn’t causing this global economic crisis. And that is, of course, the pursuit and enjoyment of trees and flowers and sunrises and sunsets and friends and good food and drink and the love of someone with whom you like spending time.

So, if you can, try to stay unborn at least until we’ve gotten all this sorted out. If not, if you’re like me and have already been born, won’t you please join me in being outraged?

• Schell