Love Rollercoaster!

Extra kudos if you can name the band that had that hit in 1991. Usually if I title a post something with rollercoaster in it, I am either ranting about my:

• abject hatred of theme parks; or
• depression.

I'm in Boca with my friend Stacy. There is no plan to go to a theme park and no reason to be depressed. But yesterday I was hanging out, playing around on the computer and for some unknown reason, decided to click my iGoogle page to see how my Fantasy Portfolio (and personal stuff) was doing. It was around 3:00. And here's what I saw:

Apple, which had recently shot up as high as the $270s, was at something like $229. Now...Stacy is my stock guru...we are such geeks that when we get together, we sometimes just lay on her bed watching CNBC and talking about stocks. So I ran into her room and said, "Oh my God! Should we be freaking out yet?" We (of course) flipped on CNBC as I watched our retirement funds go from affording us a comfortable retirement to wondering if we would have a car big enough to sleep in once we retire. 

We had some friendly banter about whether this was a computer glitch or Armageddon...or both. Optimist that I am, I kept rooting for the former while Stacy called her broker to make sure it wasn't the latter.

Pepper, Stacy's cute, fluffy, white dog was cowering under the bed terrified, contemplating the fate of her Eukanuba stock.

Sure enough, it turns out that some person at Citigroup was putting in a trade and clicked on "B" for "billion" instead of "M" for "million." It's kind of like that time you got one wrong on your math test because you moved the decimal point over one too many times to the right.

Don't you think they should just take the "B" key off these people's computers and make them go to a supervisor's computer or something if they do happen to have something that really needs a "B?" Or how about one of those pop-up screens? Not the typical, "Are you sure you want to do this?" but one that says, "Are you sure you want to do this and potentially cause panic on Wall Street and around the world and cause talking heads to use words like capitulation and volatility and 1929?"

It was definitely a rollercoaster for Di's Fantasy Stock Portfolio which now looks like this:

 

Strangley, at the end of yesterday, the only stock that closed up (by a whopping 21 cents!) was FlowServe, which I only bought because Joel, who hangs out at the Cantina, works there. Thanks Joel! You saved Di's Fantasy Stock Portfolio from ending the day with no green showing!

Still feeling optimistic? Yeah...I think it will fluctuate for a few days and start creeping back up. But don't listen to me...I used to own Enron stock!

Di

 

 

Comments

[Melanie]

I doubt Pepper will have to become accustomed to generic doggie treats. The dude at citi probably had a pop-up blocker on his computer - illegally installed. Enjoy Florida!

[Di]

Pepper is treated better and given more than my kids! Shes a pretty lucky dog. And the reason for the name Pepper? Their last name is Mintz. Pepper Mintz.

[Vicky]

Love Rollercoaster was by the Ohio Players, but I am familiar with the version by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. (No relation to "Pepper Mintz")