What is WRONG with this country?

Today started out well. My e-mail this morning contained notifications that birthday and baby and cheering-up gifts were all on their way to friends, another friend's cat had come home after her owner had given her up, the sun was shining, I smelled yummy and work went well.

Then in the afternoon, my day started sliding downward. I made two mistakes at work, not huge ones, but they involved other people's work, which sucks. Then on my way home, I stopped at the bank and discovered I'd overdrawn my checking account by $10, which was immediately increased by the $30 fee.

I spent the next ten minutes reminding myself that my paycheck would be deposited Friday morning first thing, and even after the NSF fees, there would be enough money in my account to pay bills, buy gas and food and even have lunch out one day next week. I also went over all the ways in which I am rich, both in luxuries like bath products, necessities like half a tank of gas and a refrigerator full of leftovers, emotionally in terms of family, friends and pets. The sun was still shining, which helped, and I had managed to pull myself out of the little dip of despair.

At the big intersection down in the Valley, there was a very young man (early 20s if that) standing on the sidewalk, holding a cardboard sign that read "NO FOOD, NO DIAPERS, NO JOKE, PLEASE HELP."

I had a visceral reaction to this young man and his sign, a combination of pain that anyone with a small child has to beg for diapers, guilt that I was broke because I spend money on luxuries and anger that our President is making noises about starting yet another war because the one we're in now hasn't sufficiently enlarged his dick and that our candidates are all running around smearing mud on each other and that we as a people are more interested in the "next American Idol" or "next Top Model" than we are in making a damn difference.

I just feel sick.