Confessions of a TARP wife.

[Hello_Kitty]

It's so haaaaaaaard :eyes: :nopity:

I am a TARP wife.

In keeping with the unwritten code of this new sisterhood, I have taken a vow of financial abstinence. I returned the presents my husband gave me for Christmas (but didn’t tell him, since he’s already awash in gloom) and am using my credit balances at all the major department stores for important gifts and other necessities.

I haven’t even looked at spring clothes; God forbid someone catches me out in something new. Keeping up with fashion seems somehow decadent in this new era, like getting Botox injections or catered dinners. Like so many others, I’m shopping in my closet. I’ve bought exactly two things this year—makeup and panty hose. If I buy a present for someone, I have the package sent to their home. I don’t want to be spotted climbing into a taxi, laden with Bergdorf Goodman shopping bags.

As you can see, being a TARP wife means, in short, making decisions according to a complex algorithm: balancing the need to look like your world hasn’t crumbled beneath you—let’s not alarm the investors!—with the need to appear duly repentant for your subprime sins. It also means we’re part of the community of more than 400 companies that have received government bailout funds, whose fall from grace has been swifter and harsher than any since Mao frog-marched intellectuals into China’s countryside.




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