I like to think I'm as avaricious as the next person, so when I read that $1 million in stimulus funds had been given out to the author of an online soap opera called "Diary of a Single Mom," every greedy bone in my body started tingling like Chris Matthews' leg used to at the sight of Barack Obama.

I realize some cynics might argue that this largesse was like Solyndra and countless other stimulus boondoggles -- in this case, a means to pay off a friendly TV producer and actor, but I still have hope and faith in the honesty of this administration and its transparency, so I'm plowing ahead with my plan to get the Department of Commerce to underwrite my own online production of " Scenes of the Occupation." I'm certain that my political affiliation and that of the performers and the nature of the work will not prejudice my chances for a grant one bit.

The story's about Buffy, a tanning studio worker who loses her position as a result of the administration tax on tanning operations. She's kind of a klutz so the only other jobs she can find when the soap opera begins -- working in an exercise studio or waitressing are out of the question. In the first episode she trips on the Pilates equipment and some barbells fall and knock her out . Understandably, the owner is afraid of his increased insurance tab should he hire her to work there, and she doesn't get the position. At the restaurant, she fares no better. On her first probationary day, she trips again and spills platters of pasta primavera all over a table of thirty something lawyers all dressed in their best navy pinstripes. You can imagine he owner's cleaning bill! And then , too, they were muttering about collateral damages, about how this would cause them to lose a million dollar account or something.

Bit by bit Buffy sells off her possessions on craigslist to stay alive, but just as she's run out of money and turned down the last available job offer -- an airport security post with TSA patting down octogenarians and babies' diapers for explosives -- she notices a group occupying Wall Street and decides to join them with whatever meager possessions she still owns: her iPad, Apple Air, Kindle and Blackberry.

In the second episode, things are going very smoothly. She's made lots of new friends and learned a lot about economics. A guy named Eric the Red, for example, explains how the goods of the earth are like a big pizza and everyone is entitled to an equal share. If someone gets a bigger slice than others get a smaller one. She and he are now part of a huge majority -- 99% -- determined to band together to get the 1% who have more than the 99% to give them an equal share of the goodies. He explains this as they sit in a donated tent eating organic chicken and arugula, hand crafted goat cheese crottins and designer wrapped hybrid pears, all donated by local farmers and prepared by sympathetic chefs . She's a bit hungry after the meal though, because Eric (absent mindedly probably) ate most of her meal along with his when she became distracted by the influx of homeless trying to make their way to the buffet table before she'd even got to the desserts. It kind of makes Buffy wonder if others think she owes them part of her share, but that thought immediately is lost as she elbows her way to the chocolate mousse and passion fruit sorbet.

In the third episode, Buffy finds it hard to keep clean after her fellow occupiers break the sinks in the restrooms of the nearby yucky not even organic, for profit fast food chains which had allowed them to come in to warm up and wash up. "You'd think they'd get them fixed right away instead of shutting them down," she complained to Eric, But he was busy with a couple of newer and younger girls who'd just moved into their tent and didn't seem to hear her.

At first local pols and celebrities and even the President himself signal their solidarity with the now rather dirty occupiers whose living quarters are attracting more than homeless bums -- rats can be seen scurrying about even in daylight; criminals are finding the well-equipped naïfs easy marks and the lack of sanitation makes the site of their activity noisome in the extreme. Human waste is deposited on the ground with used condoms and half eaten food making movement from tent to tent rather perilous.

Soon even Susan Sarandon ceases stopping by. And, probably because someone told the Mayor that people were smuggling in salt and transfats to the encampment and people were seen smoking cigarettes, they lose favor even with him.

Buffy was busy working on the demands 

• Moratorium on all foreclosures
• Solve the unemployment problem
• Open vacant and distressed land for community use
• Law enforcement to be prohibited from using weapons on proteste
• The City to pressure the State for Constitutional Convention to remove corporate personhood
• That the City recognizes the need for clean energy
• The City finds solutions on student debt
• The City treats education as a right
• Repeal of right-to-work legislation.
• No cutbacks in City services or City employee wages [/quote]

As for the President, he offers no more messages of support although it seems he still winks at them whenever his motorcade passes through town heading for fundraising dinners with 1%ers. He does seem to be distancing himself though, especially after Eric and some of the others start marching around with giant papier mache heads which look like Obama as Hitler. 

And it's getting cold. In fact, so cold that Eric seems to have decamped with the protest leaders to a suite in the Ritz Carleton while Buffy coughs with an obvious case of pneumonia. The old knish seller wheels his cart past the ambulance taking her away and cries out in anguish in time with his La Boeheme iPod, Buffy, Du hast arayn gefaln!." (Tr: You have fallen into it)

I've got a call in to Adam Corolla to see if he'd be interested in the male lead. I expect a call back any minute from Heidi Montag, who I think would be a perfect Buffy. As soon as I have the talent wrapped up I'm sending the proposal over to Commerce and then I'm sure I'll be riding high on the hog.