by Dave Hughes

Created on: May 10, 2009   Last Updated: May 19, 2009

Recessions can be fun!

With all the whining in the media about lost jobs, foreclosures, and falling stocks, the only way to keep one's sanity is to find the bright side of this economic melodrama. The nation's recovery will take a while, but personal recovery is right around the corner.

Take allowances. Remember when your parents handed you a few bucks every week? It may have been for doing a few chores, but, in reality, you got the money just for being their treasured offspring. If you're like most people, your allowance never officially came to an end. Most of us just found our own ways of making money.

We got jobs.

Since it never really came to a stop, just start it up again. Let mom and dad know you'll be expecting that ten dollars a week from now on, and smile when you remind them that the payments are retroactive back to the time they stopped.

It sounds like a good plan, but beware! Don't put it past your parents to try to collect on all the money it took to raise you from a tiny tot to a grown individual with an income, part of which would sure come in handy, what with the tough economic times and all.

We can also learn from our Russian friends how best to handle hard times.

Before you sell your car to make ends meet, consider that it can become a significant source of income.

As anyone who has ever been to Moscow will attest, every Muscovite with an automobile is a taxi service. For few American dollars, a smiling driver will take you anywhere you want to go.

Although the livery rules are a bit stiffer in the States, that doesn't mean you can't turn some of that free time you got when you lost your job into a few utility payments by being the designated driver for the local carpool, ferrying those lucky enough to still have jobs.

Besides, it gives you the perfect opportunity to share your misery and love the company of your passengers as they grow increasingly more paranoid about their own employment.

Oh, and don't forget that those very same passengers probably skipped breakfast ( a strict schedule of pickups and incessant horn-honking on your part can go a long way toward helping this along), so be sure to have doughnuts and hot coffee ready for them when they get going, at a price, of course.

Don't endure the recession, enjoy it.

Learn about the pure fun of replacing all the light bulbs in your kids' room with candles, all the while reciting tales of Abraham Lincoln's greatness.

Shed serious tears (glycerin helps) when informing your paperboy you'll be getting your news from CNN from now on.

And praise the gods of greed whenever you strap on those worn old sneakers that you were never able to keep from finding their way to the garbage before they made sure you wouldn't have enough to buy new ones.

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