What about MEEEE??

I will probably do a pleasant post (with pictures) later this weekend, but right now I have a curmudgeonly rant.

Stimulus stuff is all well and good, but I'm being left out in the cold AGAIN. All these measures I'm hearing about seem to be for "other" people.

Huge tax credit for first-time home buyers. Fine, but what about those of us who are going through their FOURTH re-finance? Nothing.

"Cash for clunkers" -- Great idea to get people to trade in their old cars. But guess what? The old car has to get less than 18 miles per gallon. We've got an 18-year-old car that is literally falling apart (even though it's only got 65,000 miles on it). Unfortunately, it's a Toyota and gets 25-30 miles per gallon. I suppose we could trade in our 1985 Toyota pickup instead (lousy mileage), but Tom needs a pickup.

Tax credits for people who buy energy-efficient appliances. Wonderful, but you have to buy the appliance in 2009. We bought a new energy-efficient furnace in 2008, so we're just SOL.

Credit card companies and car dealers saying they will make my payments for me for six months if I lose my job. All well and good, but I'm not likely to lose my job. Sheesh, just let me skip one month!

It's just frustrating. For my entire adult life, I've made too much money to qualify for anything, but not enough to PAY for anything. We live in a "target" neighborhood, where there is lots of money available for house projects; but we miss the cut-off by about $2,000 to qualify for any of it, and can't afford to pay for the things we want to do to our house. We're lucky in that Tom is skilled enough to do most of the necessary work (e.g. plumbing), but we certainly can't afford to replace our sewer line from the house to the alley, or build a garage.

I caught some of a program last night about Farrah Fawcett's battle with cancer. Yes, she is very brave, but apparently has limitless funds that enable her to fly to Germany several times a year for treatments that aren't available here. How many people can afford to do that? Cripes, I had a filling fall out a couple weeks ago, but have to wait till I have a couple hundred extra bucks to get it fixed (it's not causing me pain -- I'd find a way if it was).

Enough. I'm just tired of falling through the cracks.