Right around 2005 or 2006, I remember hearing someone talking at work about the impending housing bubble which could potentially serve to cripple the U.S. economy.  If he only had the foresight and clairvoyance to divine the right combination of lottery numbers, he would have been set.

But alas, he wasn’t.

You never really expected me to throw the word “alas” into a blog, did you?

Stay tuned.  Maybe you’ll see me do some other freaky stuff.

The reason the individual in question was able to see what was happening in the housing market at the time is because he was able to interpret the key indicators within that sector of the economy that told him something was about to blow up.

I’d like to think I’m capable of using similar skills to see what’s going to happen in the coming year.  I didn’t get to where I am at this point in my life without being able to read the tea leaves smeared on the stitches of the fast ball.

At this very moment, in the cabinet under the sink in the front bathroom here at the TharpSter compound, there are no less than 9 bottles of bodywash.

Nine.

Count them.

The reason they’re there has nothing to do with a mild case of hoarding.  Perish the thought that this particular product frequently goes on sale at a local mass merchandiser and subsequently gets purchased by various retirees on fixed incomes in an effort to keep their grandchildren clean and relatively free of some armpit born fungus.

None of those half baked suggestions apply here.

The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is a very simple one.

When one looks at the country’s economic condition as it stands right now, one can only surmise that the high unemployment rate, the high debt ratio, the slow growth, the uncertainty of pending legislation which tends to guide our behavior, the ambitious desire of those in power to relieve us of what they consider to be ill-gotten gains via confiscatory taxation, the imminent collapse of the European economy, and the fact that Madonna is slated to perform at this year’s Super Bowl are ingredients of a calamitous concoction which can only lead to a major shortage of body wash sometime during the year.  I’m predicting it will be toward the end of the second quarter, or even the beginning of the third.

Consider yourself warned.