Feeling the knife

The old saying when prices go up but incomes don't is "feeling the pinch," but we unanimously think is more appropriate to say "feeling the knife.”
    I have proof. By any chance are they bills, receipts or the Consumer Price Index? Why, of course! In journalism school they told me not to write about something I hadn’t mastered. Ha! I Ph.D’d it this time.        Prices are up at least 4 percent, comparing with this time last year. But don't start celebrating and thinking that's not too bad, because this is something like a 40-mile-per-hour wind compared with even higher and more damaging budget winds expected. Eggs have gone up 30 percent, milk 13.3 percent, bread 14.7, gas 26 percent, and women's clothing 5.5 percent. This last item means ladies’ — all ages — favorite sport is shopping.
    School cafeteria officials are worrying, like everyone else, about the price of food. Parents are watching closely. Accordingly, tuition, fees, books and other "intellectual material" have been steady on their way up. In the real estate market, there are horrifying chapters in reducing prices drastically and interest going up up, and away. Foreclosure is everyone's fear, as bad as a nightmare or the presence of a monster for a kid.
    Airlines’ troubles keep passengers involuntarily bumped from scheduled flights, being late to business appointments and missing who knows what opportunities. They are late to funeral services or not able to comply with a doctor's appointment. Or does anybody think people fly as a mean of transportation only for vacation? And even so, they also deserve respectful treatment and being on time.
    But this is not all in today's unfriendly skies. Prices are going up. However, the quality of services and meals is awful in tourist class, and rest rooms are half a star on a scale of the customary five stars. Today's seats are smaller than old school desks. And how about oversold flights? Or spending the night at an airport in plastic seats with the cafeterias closed, even while traveling with children. I have been on some flights in which the space reminds me of those small and old overcrowded buses we have seen in movies.
    Old cars use more gas than some of the new models, but we can't trade our  because money is “busy" today taking care of higher bills, including gas. Paying today's debts is a labyrinth. While billfolds grow thinner, credit cards get fatter. Luxuries have been out of many families' budgets for a long while.
    All these bills are not that important if you take a look at the prices of medications, because health is at stake. It has been said that there are patients taking half of their prescribed doses to be able to keep on buying the medication. Or even worse, some are eating less to be able to afford their medicines. Some medications have generic or over-the-counter substitutes with affordable prices, but some only have the original at evidently uncontrolled prices.
    The anti-allergy prescription (no generic or over-the-counter equivalent) for Singulaire made me pay $88 for 60 pills. When I said that was way too much, the lady in the pharmacy showed me what I would be paying if I didn't have a prescription drug plan: $244.88. Yes, two hundred forty-four dollars and eighty- eight cents.
    Any comments?