A recession in the barbershop is not about hair

"So, anything fun planned?" asked the barber. 

A woman, yes, but if they call it a barbershop then she is a barber.

Thanks to my former employer forcing me off my tenured full-professor job, a small-talk question about the weekend or the summer is now easy to handle.

"Every day is fun now that I am retired."

"Oh, you are already retired ..."

Source

For once, somebody did not think that I was a retired old fart.

"Some day soon I hope to be retired."

"What do you want to do in retirement?"

I am still the old academic who loved asking questions for students to respond.  People usually run away from professors--especially the retired kind--because the stereotype that they love to pontificate is true.  Early on in my teaching career I understood that teaching is not about me droning on and on but is all about providing opportunities for students to understand and demonstrate what they figured out on their own.  In the barbershop chair, I was more interested in what she had to say.

"I want to travel ... go to a remote island.  Like the Maldives."

"Oh yeah?  You might want to do that sooner than later.  Those islands will soon be underwater because of climate change."

I continue to be true my true General Malaise persona wherever I go, even in the barbershop.  The fact that she had dangerous weapons in her hand made no difference to this battle-tested general.

"Really? ..."

"Yep.  In fact, a few years ago, the Maldives government held an underwater cabinet meeting in order to get the world's attention about how climate change will affect them."

There was a pause in the conversation.  I feared that General Malaise had nuked the life out of her.

But after a few seconds she said, "with gas prices going so high, I doubt if I can even travel to the next town over.  I think we are in a recession."

Now, this is not something that Professor Khé would have allowed.  It is one thing for students to express their opinions.  But, it is another if they are not clear about the concept.  A recession is not what she thinks it is.  The inflation that we experience is not recession.

"Well ... we are not in any recession.  The economy is growing.  Unemployment is low.  But, yes, prices are high.  A major factor is the war in Ukraine.  Even if the war ends tomorrow, it will be a while before gas and food prices come down."

I now wondered if she was already asleep from my lecture, like how most students were in my classes.  But, what if she is an influencer among her friends and spreads the correct information to her Facebook friends based on what I told her.  I had to lecture dammit, and I am glad I did.

"Oh, you mean like when all those containers were stuck in ports all over during the pandemic and there was a shortage?"

Now, she is an A+ student!

"Yes.  This is the downside to living in a highly interconnected world.  Something happens somewhere and we all experience it."

"Which is how it should be so that we can all work together.  But, people are so ready to fight over nothing."

I hope that President Joe "hair plug" Biden and the Democratic Party will talk to people like her and gear up for the upcoming elections.  If not, they will end up laying a red carpet for this guy to become the next President and his party to control all the branches of the federal government!