The economy in briefs

Don’t believe all this fake news being aired that the economy is crashing. Check yourself. Climb on to that plastic stool from your bathroom, and peer into the neighbour’s garden. Can you see their underwear hanging to dry? Now, count each piece. Yesterday, today, last week, next month.

If your neighbour comes charging out, threatening to sue you, inform him that you are doing critical economic research. It is called the Underwear Index of the economy’s health by that Alan Greenspan fellow. Go sue him, you tell your neighbour. ‘But he’s not peeping at my underwear,’ he shouts, ‘you are.’ ‘Well,’ you shout back, ‘I am not either. I was not peeping at your underwear when it was underwear, only when it is being aired outside’.

This is how it works. When underwear sales drag, it is an indicator that the economy is dragging. So what if the elastic band is loosening or it is getting more ventilated, we will save our money. Jockey or nothing, ah? So choose nothing. Not as in wear nothing — buy nothing. I can see you squirming, I told you it is not me, go accost Mr Greenspan. Am I asking you why you are squirming? As good neighbours do, you stand on opposite sides of the fence, criticising each other.

Your neighbour declares, ‘This Greenhand, I do not trust him. It is fake news! A foreign hand is trying to manipulate our underwear. I will not let Greenland (Greenspan, you correct him) poke holes in our underwear index. We will go out and make a public display of our blooming, flourishing, flying underwear.’

You too are so overcome with positivity, that you almost fall off your bathroom stool. You promise to fight with your neighbour. He pledges, ‘We will not let any Greenhorn dictate what we should or should not wear’.

‘Anyway, don’t worry too much,’ you say, ‘festival sales should perk up’. Yes, you both decide, this is the correct solution. We should start a movement, take underwear out into the open, make sure that sales sail. We will gift each other underwear on every occasion henceforth. And post it on social media, too. We are the Underwear Warriors. Who does Greenman think he is? Let’s change all our profile pics to Y fronts right now! If you truly love your economy, you will do it.

Where Jane De Suza, author of Flyaway Boy , pokes her nose into our perfect lives.