Two bored casino dealers are waiting at the craps table when a very
attractive blonde woman from Northeast Tennessee arrived.

She bet twenty-thousand dollars ($20,000) on a single roll of the dice.

She said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I feel much luckier when I play
topless.”

With that, she stripped to the waist; rolled the dice; and yelled,
“Come on, baby….Southern Girl needs new clothes!” As the dice came to
a stop, she jumped up-and-down….and squealed… “YES! YES! I WON! I
WON!”

She hugged each of the dealers…and then picked up her winnings and
her clothes, and quickly departed.

The dealers stared at each other dumfounded.

Finally, one of them asked, “What did she roll?” The other answered, “I
don’t know… I thought you were watching.”

Moral - Not all Southerners are stupid. Not all blondes are dumb. But
all men… are men.

I heard an interesting discussion the other day. A couple is planning to get engaged, and they have agreed to choose the engagement ring together. They both have lucrative careers ahead of them, but are currently in school. The school tuition is being financed by their parents. They set a budget for the ring, and found two options that fall within that budget. One ring is smaller and better quality, and the other is larger and poorer in quality (although not noticeably so). The woman wants the larger, flashier ring. The man is worried that the larger ring may appear to be too flashy and expensive in the eyes of his parents (who are, again, paying for his tuition) and therefore he is uncomfortable with that ring. He would prefer to select the smaller ring to avoid upsetting his parents.

Who do you think should have precedence in choosing the size of an engagement ring? The woman, who will wear it (hopefully) forever? Or the man, who will (in this scenario, anyway) pay for it?

So far our jobs have kept us pretty insulated from the ravages of the economy. I haven’t noticed much personally, other than what I’ve seen in the news reports. But this week I finally started seeing changes - big changes - on the street. Last weekend we went shopping for clothes and we both commented on how it seems like everything is marked way down on sale. Not altogether a terrible situation, since we were able to score a bunch of new clothes for cheap. But yesterday I saw something crazy.

I walked into a mall on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago in the middle of a big shopping district…and when I stepped inside I realized the entire mall is closed. The lights were off, the escalators were roped off, the floor was filthy, and the shops were all boarded up. I guess they have the lobby open to service the only remaining store, a department store on the first floor. It was bizarre! It looked like that TV show “Life After People” where they show what cities would look life after humans no longer exist. Seriously, how does an entire mall on Michigan Avenue go under?

I googled the mall when I got home and saw that it actually closed 6 months ago. Maybe the fact that I didn’t notice for 6 months points to one reason why it closed…hmmm. Anyway, it still blows my mind that it is gone. Suddenly “the economy” is much more tangible to me.