People who lay awake with worries about running out of oil, or gas at $5 a gallon or somesuch bring Mrs. Shook to mind.

She was our neighbor when I was a kid. She had no television. So she came to our house Thursday nights. To watch wrestling.

My brother and I would spend half an hour persuading her the wrestling was fake. We explained how they pulled punches. And pretended to be injured. We assured her nobody got hurt. And that each match was a staged performance. And no more real than a soap opera.

And every week she came around to agreeing. But as soon as the wrestling came on she burst into tears. With every faked uppercut, every body slam she writhed on the couch. “Oooh, that must, it must have hurt him. Oh, how terrible. How will he ever recover? Boo hoo.”

No matter how desperate his situation, her hero always recovered, of course. He always won. He showed no bruises, bled no blood.

She learned nothing. Saw no pattern. Next week, same drill.

Recently people fretted over gas at $3 a gallon. “It’s going to go to $5! It’s going to bring down our economy. It’s going to plunge us into a depression. It’s a conspiracy. The giant oil companies have manipulated the prices. They are gouging us.”