The Way We Live Now: Traumatized. Have you heard? Unemployment is traumatic. Also traumatic, according to recession scientists: Shitty vacations, being arrested for your big casino robbery, and contemplating your boss' retirement package.

The New York Times did a big poll, and guess what: joblessness will stress you out. WHATTAYA KNOW, BITCHES? And where is my gun? Hm.

Take a nice shot of thorazine and look on the existential side: your bleak employment prospects aren't the only terrible thing going on right now. The travel industry had an awful 2009, and they expect only a "modest recovery" in 2010. The main reason: you'll still be too broke to afford a vacation anywhere other than GOD DAMN DISNEY WORLD. Hey, you like hot, hot concrete? Good.

The casino robbery idea looked so awesome in those Ocean's Eleven flicks. But theirs involved all types of sophisticated electronics and tunnels and inside connections, whereas what you did was just stick up and armored car in front of the Sahara at 9 o'clock in the morning for a million bucks. And brother, good luck to you. You'll need it.

It's what economists call the "yin and yang and yin" of the recession. Some days you're too broke to afford that Caribbean vacation; other days, you have a million dollars that you just stole from an armored truck. Then other days you get caught for that crime and sent to jail for life. And on most days, your 401k is still fucked. But take heart: The top executives at your company probably have guaranteed retirement packages, so their dependable return on their savings was not effected by the plummeting stock market that destroyed your hopes for ever retiring, period. At least you still got that cold water.