Am I worried? I'm a novelist, which is the opposite of a "secure, steady job." My wife works in the financial industry. The last few weeks I've pretty much walked around with my face twisted into a silent, Munchian scream. I look like Cameron when he got lockjaw in the final reel of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Or I would if I didn't have a five-year-old and a two-year-old who couldn't care less about the financial crisis or dirty politics. They don't know anything about crazy Sarah Palin or GDP or the Dow Jones Average or the credit crunch. You know what makes them happy? Stickers. If Charlie Gibson tells them there's a sticker crunch you'll see some depression, let me tell you. As for crazy McCain/Palin voters, compare your video to this one. I think those are the same people. I'm confident that Judas Priest fans have yet to swing an election one way or the other. The odds that any of those assholes will remember to vote seem remote to me. That's not to say I'm not worried. The anxiety we all feel right now is the anxiety of the unknown. We don't know who will win this election. We don't know how bad the economic crisis might be. We don't know who will be next to go down with a knee injury on either the Bears defense or Dancing With the Stars. The other day I was driving home after dropping my son off at school and I spotted this Kerry/Edwards sign in a yard right next door to an Obama sign. Since that day I've been obsessed with what it means. Is this a person who wants to vote Democratic but can't bring themselves to vote for a black man? Is it a smartass trying to tell America, after four more years of disaster, "I told you so." Or is it just an Obama voter who can't afford a new sign? I don't have any idea. It's the uncertainty that's giving me ulcers.