In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Augustus Gloop is a greedy (as, of course, indicated by his corpulence – sigh) Austrian boy who finds a Golden Ticket, which enables him to visit the Wonka candy factory. Almost immediately, the chubby boy finds himself in trouble. As he drinks from the chocolate river (or is that a proper noun, Chocolate River?), Willy Wonka yells out to him to stop. The river has never been sullied by human hands. Gloop, however, continues to slurp up the pure chocolate by the handful. While stuffing his face, he loses his balance, falls into the river (which must make it really polluted), and is sucked up into a drain pipe. Good-bye, Augustus Gloop! Greed, in the Wonka world, is not good. (One can only imagine what would happen to Gordon Gekko in that factory, although my guess is that he would visit it, pretend to love it, acquire it through some sort of arbitrage deal, then sell it off piece by piece to investors – Chocolate River to the Chinese; Golden Geese to the Dutch; Fizzy Pop to the Americans, since we love bubble economies…)

When Husband obtained a fancy new automobile, I named it Augustus Gloop. I hoped that it would be a cautionary tale about greed that we would heed. (First an Audi, then goodness knows what could come!) Unfortunately, in what is turning out to be a drain pipe of a new year, Augustus was sideswiped by an 18 wheeler this morning as Husband drove to work. The most important news is that Husband and his passenger are OK. The bad news is that Augustus’s back end could use the mechanic equivalent Dr. P, my colorectal surgeon friend. He will be out of commission for many weeks.

The potential worst news is we have no idea how insurance will handle this, given that Husband was sideswiped last summer by a lying cuntface bitch who claimed that he hit her even thought the logistics of the accident indicated that she had to hit him. This led to him being dropped by our insurance company, although they also acknowledged that the accident was not his fault, and a new, far more expensive policy. During that time, Husband threatened to move to Connecticut because a) he could get insurance there since he would not longer have a traffic-clogged highway to commute on, and b) they have lower taxes anyway due to c) the NYS legislature being run by a bunch of corrupt, incompetent pieces of shit.

I was not thrilled with the idea of moving, or the alternative, in which I could remain in our NYC apartment and he would rent some studio near his office and live there during the week. (I was even less thrilled by the alternative.) Obviously that worked out and we are both, for now, in our nice New York City domicile with a washer and dryer (which according to a recent article in the NY Times real estate section, is the most coveted feature of City apartments, which I understand completely). In any event, I hate that this specter is again raised, although if Husband was to live in Connecticut and I in the City, it would be far less traumatic for me to go abroad on a fellowship if I were to somehow be offered that. One. Step. At. A. Time.

Overall, I am not very impressed by how 2011 is unfolding. Augustus is up shit’s creek (not even close to a chocolate river), someone I liked at work was fired yesterday for no reason, my friend whose boyfriend died last year is being harassed by his family about what he left her, my acid reflux and sinuses are flaring up, and I need to get a mouth guard against grinding caused by stress which will cost $750. I did have a nice omelet for lunch today, though, so there’s that…