Mexicans to mow the lawn, poor black ladies to clean the house, Vietnamese girls for pedicures, gay dudes at the Day Spa for massages, the Ukrainian nanny, the Korean seamstress/dry cleaner, the Brazilian bikini waxer, the starving MFA to tutor your ADD children .... There are just so many slaves to pay, in America, when you are Upper Middle Class! And now there's no money, so well-off Americans are suddenly forced to trim their own pubes, etc. Hard Times!

The problem for better-off Americans is that they literally know how to do nothing, as far as taking care of themselves. Earlier generations mowed their own grass, painted their own houses, even cut their own families' hair with either the traditional bowl 'n scissors or with a cheap '70s device such as the Flowbee.

So now that the New Depression is in full swing and many previously fancy people realize they're broke, it's domestic chaos out there. How would one, say, dye one's own hair? What does that even involve? How do you figure out something alien like cooking? What if a headlight burns out on your Lexus and you can no longer take it in to the dealer for "service"?

It's a whole new world, as the New Poor are forced to, for example, visit one of those Autozone or Kragen stores at the end of the crappy old strip mall previously only noticed for the authentic Cuban bakery.

Within one week, Mary changed the bulb in the headlight of her Mercedes, cutting out a $120 trip to the mechanic. The couple made a cake for their 11-year-old daughter's birthday party instead of spending $50 at the local bakery. And Chris, who works in a management job, picked up some cans of paint from the Sears in Fair Oaks to help a friend redecorate -- seven hours of work but a savings of roughly $1,000.

Yikes! If Obama doesn't save the Economy quick, these people may soon be forced to wipe their own ass.

Home Economics of Anxious Times: Dyeing Your Hair in the Kitchen Sink [Washington Post]