For over a year, my son has been telling me to grow my own food, can it, and save money under my mattress.  He predicted the rocketing oil prices and the collapse of the banking system, and right now, he's seeming pretty damn right.  Yesterday, I had to stop myself from pulling one hundred dollars out of my account and hiding it in a jar in the back of the cupboard.

I hatched a little plan that I should take out 100 a week until all of this passes.  But ultimately, what could would money be anyway?  There is no gold standard, no real value to it.  No value to coins, either, actually.  In fact, we might all be able to have a really good game of monopoly with it after the grid collapses and we were wishing we could chow down on some canned green beans.

This fear isn't a new one for Americans.  The Depression started just along these lines, and it probably explained the tin box full of silver and dollars my neighbors once found in a no longer functioning greenhouse on their property.  A long ago owner stashed his cash for a rainy day and then the weather cleared, the needs subsided, and he forgot about the money or died forgetting to tell anyone its location.

For a few weeks after that, my former spouse and I searched out 1925 cottage for a tin box, but weren't so lucky.

I'm telling you all right now:  there might be a jar of 20's in my kitchen, sometime soon.  If I die, alert the media.

Meanwhile, my identity thieves keep trying to steal from me, probably spurred on my the looming economic crash.  They want to steal and spend while Rome burns.  They use the relay system of phoning (the system the hearing impaired use) and call my credit card companies, trying to get the address changed.  Every week, they give it a go, hoping that somehow they will get in. 

I think about these people and wonder what it would be like to try to do that to another person.  Amazing, really, but maybe all they really need is a tin box full of cash.  I wonder if they've searched their property.

Okay, I'm going out to make some money, hoping that it will all be worth something when the paycheck rolls in.

Jessica