Dave T's Pros and Cons of Stuff Everyone Has: Debts

There are three vowels that, when strung together, mean something that sucks: I O U.

I'm talking about DEBTS

Don’t know what they are?

Merriam Webster defines debt as “something owed.” Simple enough.

The country is in financial peril. Subprime loans tanked Wall Street. At the moment I type this sentence, the national debt is $11,821,600,143,482.00! Almost twelve trillion clams. But not clams. American dollars.

College loans. Credit card debts. Gambling debts. Mortgages. Car payments. Debts are nearly inescapable.

Of course, homeless people have no debts, and some filthy rich a-holes don’t either. So, to qualify as a true stuff everyone has, I am including nonfinancial debts, like one’s debt to society, or the unpayable debt we all owe our parents for making us.

Pros:

• Some debts can be repaid with sexual favors. I don’t know when that actually happens in real life, but it’s the premise of almost every dirty movie ever made: “How am I gonna pay for all those Furbies I destroyed in my crank-induced rage? I know! I can let the ToyWorld Manager and the cashiers quintuple-team me!”

• If there were no such thing as debt, then money lenders would be out of business, because lending someone fifty grand and not getting paid back at all is no way to make a living. Without money lenders, you couldn’t ever borrow money for things. So if you needed a new car and didn’t have any money, you would be S.O.L.

• The concept of debts allows us to be held accountable for our actions, which is key to being responsible.

• Without debts, prisoners wouldn’t be able to repay their debt to society, so we’d have to kill people who committed even the simplest of crimes. I can’t live in a society where a twelve-year-old girl who shoplifts lip gloss is beheaded, her head placed on a pike as a deterrent to other twelve-year-old girls.

Total Pros: 4

Cons:

• I have debts.

• Debts are depressing. When the stockmarket crashed back in the '20s, lots and lots of people killed themselves.

• I hate words with silent letters. In a time when all types of economy are important, I make a plea for economy of letters. Silent b's seem particularly useless. We’re making it harder for nonnative speakers to pick up English. Let’s call it det. And let’s eat rack of lam. And amputate lims. And clime trees. And coam our hair. And twiddle our thums. And ask a plummer if he douts his ability at playing Lara Croft: Toom Raider. (And there’s also the problem of that wannabe word, debit. Stop pretending your debt, debit, we all know the difference.)

• Debts seem to be the cause for some very talented actors making some very awful movies. I have no other explanation for Billy Bob Thornton being in Eagle Eye.

• If there were no debts, there would be no credit cards. And that means there would be no credit reports. And that means there would be no FreeCreditReport.com (I refuse to link to them). And that means I wouldn’t have to see those awful commercials with those gangly morons ruining several valid musical genres with their jingles (that's why I refuse to link to them).

• Some people insist on holding stuff over your head forever. Like my friend George Goops. George, I’ve apologized profusely for throwing your infant daughter into a well. I’ve even offered to buy you a new one. But really, is it my fault for throwing her in there, or is it your fault for naming her Penny?

• Debts go on after you die. If you die in prison, they don’t keep you there after your death, going “Well, he had three years left on his sentence, leave him in the cell until 2012 and then we’ll bury what’s left.” But debt outlives you. If you leave an estate behind after you die, your creditors come after your assets. So, if your dad left you his house, but he owed lots of money, you may not get that house. And worse, if you cosigned a loan for that now dead person, the creditors may be able to come after you! That’s the worst death present ever.

Total Cons: 7

So, 4 Pros, 7 Cons, not a shocker, but debt is out the window. Luckily, comic bloggers determine world policy. So, as of tomorrow, the world’s debts are wiped clean, financial, ethical, etc. It’s a clean slate, kids!

While I’m rewriting world policy, I am creating a new world language: EarthSpeak. It borrows heavily from 80s American English slang, and a spattering of words from Romantic and Germanic languages, written out in Asian pictowords, and with the occasional African tongue-click in there. I’ll send you all workbooks next week. Rosetta Stone CDs to follow.

‘Til next time, Ciao!

Dave T

Dave Terruso is half of the sketch comedy duo Animosity Pierre.