I live next door to Johnson Space Center. A large portion of my friends and acquaintances work for either NASA or a contractor thereof. I live in Stockmanistan. Many of my friends are now on indefinite furlough. It's the first half of the month; I've got the mortgage and a bunch of bills to pay. First half, never pretty.
And now I will have to spend my weekend (Thursday and Friday) in bars, because that's where we meet, explaining why and how they've been duped. Explaining that they all already have insurance, that they don't have to do anything, that other than their own representative fucking them face down in the dirt, they're ok. They really don't understand that. And they're such intelligent people.
I really can't afford the bar tabs, not in the first half of the month. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.