JANE STILLWATER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Imagine that you get up every morning, go off to work, work your butt off all week and then wait in happy anticipation for your paycheck on Friday. And then it arrives. But instead of getting the full amount that you'd been eagerly expecting, you only get one-third of it. "Yikes!" you exclaim in dismay. "What happened to the rest!"

"But don't you remember," says your company's payroll clerk with a yawn, having heard all this stuff before from other employees time and again, "that you spent all the rest of your money on guns." Guns? I bought guns? "Sure you did."

"But what am I going to do about my rent money and my cable bill and paying off student loans and my trips to the mall and, er, not to mention food?"

"Sorry, guy, but our records show that for the past 60 years, you have definitely -- and apparently voluntarily -- spent at least two-thirds of your income on guns." 60 years? The last whole freaking 60 years? I did?

"But how come I've never noticed it before?"

If something like this has just happened to you, you might justifiably still be in shock. But here's some good news. You are not alone! Every single other citizen in America right now is in your exact same boat. For approximately the last 60 years, two-thirds of America's national hard-earned income has been spent exclusively on guns. Two-thirds of all our taxes. And two-thirds of all America's credit-card debts too.

"But if I had spent all that money on guns for all those years, then where are they?" you might also ask. Good question. For all the trillions of dollars that we Americans have spent on guns in the last 60 years, you would think that every single one of us would have at least one or two Glocks, a couple of semi-automatics or at least even a Deringer stashed in the back of our closets or under our beds, right?

Then you would be wrong. We've got nothing to show for our rash 60-year spending spree except for a couple of million corpses, a goodly part of which are women and children. And who wants a pile of dead babies stinking up the house!

PS: Actually, the annual American tax budget allotment for guns is only 57% -- that we know of. But who the freak even knows how much we also spend on black budgets and covert ops and foreign rendition prisions and spying on evil-doers like you and me.

(Photo: United States Mint)