How My Life Was Changed By Yesterday’s Stock Market Ride

Yesterday morning, I woke up a happy man. I had a great job. I had a wife and three beautiful kids, and I had just gotten a new Mini Cooper – red, with a white stripe.

But then, at about 2:30, the Dow Jones Industrial Average began to drop. I began to get a sick feeling in my stomach. My boss sent me an email saying that the office was going to have undergo some restructuring, and he’d like to meet with me in his office in 30 minutes. The kids’ school called, and said that my oldest child had gotten in trouble on the playground.

15 minutes later, the Dow was down by over 700 points. I got an email from my wife. It read, “My husband won’t be home for another two hours. Why don’t you come over for a quick ‘back rub’?” The school called and said that it wasn’t just my oldest kid who was in trouble. All three of them had started a playground brawl that sent five children to the hospital. As I was explaining to the principal that I couldn’t get to the school until at least 5:15, there was a great crash outside my office window, and I looked down to the street to see that a construction crane had dropped an i-beam right on top of my new car. Security then brought me a box, saying, “You’ll need to put your things in here.”

By 3:05, however, the Dow had gone back up several hundred points. I came out of the meeting with my boss to learn that I wasn’t being fired, but I was being “promoted” to a job that would pay me less money than I had been making, and I’d have to take a new office in the basement. The foreman from the construction company sent a message saying that he would buy me a brand new Honda Accord. The principal from the school called up to let me know that my kids weren’t in trouble after all. They didn’t start the fight. They were simply among the five children sent to the hospital. Just then, the very attractive woman in the office next to mine came in to have a talk. “Listen,” she said. “My husband and your wife have been having an affair for at least a couple months now. I’m sorry to tell you about it, but what do you say we meet after work for some revenge sex?”

As I packed up my things to move down to the basement, I checked the Dow again, and saw that, while it was still down for the day, at least things had stabilized. Silently, I thanked Reuters for bringing me up-to-the-minute news of the stock market’s performance, realizing how much it matters in my life.