AS THE AMERICAN ECONOMY continues to recover from a recession, certain sacrifices must be made in order to keep life goals realistic. It appears the "American Dream," once including home ownership and financial prosperity, has since been reduced to becoming a supervisor at Home Depot and having enough pot to last a lifetime.

A random sample of 4,000 Americans ranging in age from 18 to 45 say that the bleak outlook on the economy has changed everything from weekend benders to mid-life-crisis car purchases. "This sucks!" explained John Taylors, a 40 year old librarian who thought he was on track to retire by 65. "My house is worth half of what I paid for it. I knew I should have stuck with my gut 20 years ago and started a grow-op."

Rick Lurms, age 20, is a current employee of Home Depot. After graduating from junior college, Lurms was scared he would have to 'find a real job' within the next few years. "I was relieved after I realized that all I have to do is make supervisor and keep my dealer closer than my girlfriend," explained Lurms. "I feel like I beat the system before it could beat me; feels good." When asked why he wasn’t going for manager, Lurms said he “Wasn’t looking for that much responsibility right now.”

Lurms, like so many Americans, has taken solace in the fact that the US government is worse at balancing their checkbook than they are. Brian Simmons, a 5th grade teacher, stated, "I financed a $55,000 car when I turned 19, with little to no hope of making the monthly payments - but you don't see my debt in the trillions!"

Home Depot has seen four times the amount of applicants after dropping their long standing policy of drug testing. One store manager explained, "I was being forced to fire people I had just bought pot from the night before. It made for a terrible work environment." The goal of the new policy is to eliminate the high employee turnover by allowing people to have fun on their time off.

The CEO of Home Depot responded to the 400% increase in applicants in a press conference earlier today. "It will take some time, but we will be evaluating every applicant as quickly as possible. I just want to make one thing clear: there can only be so many supervisors."

Donna Kepler, a Home Depot district manager in California, stated, "Only the best employees will be promoted to supervisors. You know, the few who don't consistently show up to work high." With that being a stretch goal for most of the employees, the most dedicated of all workers stand a good chance at ‘making it big’ at their local Home Depot.