My parents have lost a considerable chunk. Being only a couple years from retirement, that's most unhappy timing.

Well, we've only just started our probably a year or two ago, so there wasn't exactly a fortune in them. But yeah, I think we're down quite a bit. What can you do?

Retire? What's that? I burned off my first 401(k) to pay for the last year of seminary and didn't get a good run at the next one for a few years. Twenty years later, am I better off for having stayed out of debt, or would I have been better off with the fatter 401(k)? To me, I feel like it's a toss-up because I'll probably never really retire fully anyway.

Jen: ouch, why did they have their 401k in stocks at this age? Didn't anyone tell them to move to bonds or something more secure? Damn

Rev Mike: At least you are in a field that allows you to work much later in life than most. What's it like to live debt free?

Shank: look at the bright side, at least you are buying low now.

Touchy topic, that...one of them wanted to switch, one of them didn't. But the 401(k) isn't all they have--Dad has pension, too. So it's not like they'll be living on cat food.

I hate cats. I guess the upside to the possibility of us all living on cat food is that it's a competition that humans would probably win - thereby leaving the cats to starve.

Oh! Or we could just start eating cats! Yeah!

Not it.

Eating cats isn't the answer. Sure, there's more than one way to skin them but every way still sucks. It's way easier to just debone a monkey.

A cat in every pot, and a monkey in every closet!

Don't let Ethel hear you say that. He hates monkeys.