The Housing Crisis is B.S., created by the media for election drama.

If you live in Pennsylvania and are registered to vote, chances are you've had about ten bajillion candidates for every office known to man contact you in recent weeks to secure your vote in the primary this coming Wednesday. While I truly believe in the crazy democracy that our founding fathers laid down a few hundred years ago mere blocks from my house, it's a little insane. The kooks have come out of the freaking woodwork, all sudden experts on what this country needs. I've had every snot-nosed art school brat in Philadelphia shoving an Obama button in my face, crackheads blathering about politics at high decibel levels at 4 am outside my window and old men interrupting my sit-on-the-stoop-and-enjoy-spring-fever break by to striking up political conversations. I've made my national television debut while running in a background shot of Independence Mall. Yep, I'm the scrawny white girl in the Georgia T-shirt clearly sucking wind because I'm way out of shape.

Anyone else sick of this yet? I am. Have the election already and pack your news trucks up to move onto the latest hometown of the newest missing pregnant woman whose name probably ends in -acy Peterson.

Not that I don't believe in the process - I really do. I'm just sick of the focus on issues that are no more relevant to the candidate for President or City Dog Catcher than the price of tea in China. Do we care that there's 6 million uninsured children? Nope. Does the media focus on the fact that things that we actually have the wherewithall and ability to solve? Nah. Are we even paying attention to the War, which is what people had been thinking about only months ago? No. We're focusing on random pie-in-the-sky ideals that have no substance (which I won't even touch right now) and...THE HOUSING CRISIS.

CRISIS. Such a big scary word.

First things first. This isn't a "crisis". Cuban Missiles were a crisis. Nuclear warheads parked with a cocked hair-trigger 90 miles away - THAT'S a crisis. The housing market is not in a crisis.

Secondly - and this is big - rest assured, God-fearing citizens. Milton Friedman may be dead, but his teachings are alive and kicking and don't even require all that much except common sense in this point. I don't care what the interest rates are, what CEO at Countrywide is being arrested for whatever transgressions he's committed, or what party is in office - NO BANK is going around snatching houses away from people for no good reason. Banks foreclose for one reason and one reason only. It's simple:

YOU WON'T GET FORECLOSED UPON IF YOU PAY YOUR MORTGAGE.

It's that simple. If you write that check every month, you will stay in your home. The bank has actually no interest (pardon the pun) in "stealing" your house. They'd rather have your money. If you're on a fixed-rate mortgage and work in some state job that you have no hope of ever being fired from, I congratulate you. Keep that bitch on auto-pay and keep working.

If you're not, however, I give you my very minimal advice. I'm not a homeowner, hell, I'm barely making rent, I'm self-employed. I understand that when money gets tight, you gotta cut corners. But really. It's not that hard.

1. Rainy-day fund. Dad tells you to have it, some of us are smart enough to save it. Shit. I haven't done it either. But I also didn't sign a zillion-page document accepting a loan of a quarter-million dollars or more. If you want that house, make sure you can write that damn check every month, even when you finally get your ass fired for surfing myspace during the workday.

2. READ the fine print on what you sign. I find it amazing that people throw fits in the liquor store when they have to give their zip code to buy their cheap $7 wine, citing privacy laws that don't even exist, yet they spend four minutes reviewing a document that is going to affect their income and wealth for the next thirty or more years. That adjustable rate mortgage? Yeah, they ain't kidding. They'll raise it. And they'll charge you more if you want to get out early. And there's probably points on the back end. Don't like those terms? BACK OUT OF THE DEAL. NOW. The loan officer is not your friend, he is making money off of you.

3. DO NOT buy more of ANYTHING than you can afford. Period. Including a house. If you've got ten brats running around and you work at Wendy's, you can't afford a 12-bedroom house. It is NOT child abuse for your kid to share a room, and you will not die if you don't have stainless steel appliances, an in-ground pool and a three-car garage. I shared a bedroom with my sister for the better part of ten years. It was fun, it was like a slumber party every night. Never once did I bitch about it, chances are your kids won't either. Okay, so we drew a line down the room once or twice, but whatever. I'd be a whole lot crankier if I had to clean out my room because we were getting foreclosed on.

4. You don't OWN your job, and you are not entitled to a job. Nowhere during those summer meetings over at 5th and Chestnut did the founding fathers sign anything giving you life, liberty and a cushy secure job with a pension and a gold watch. I got news for you - if you are depending on certain pensions for your nest egg, you're in for a rude awakening. Especially if you have a union job and/or work in manufacturing. You're cheaper in China. Solution? Figure out another career path. Sound scary? Yes, but so is foreclosure. I'm guessing that typewriter repairmen could go on and ON about how their jobs have gone to computers, but they won't...because they're either in new computer jobs or they're in school to get a better set of marketable skills. Find out what you CAN do for a paycheck to pay that mortgage and go after it.

5. Finally, if you get into a pinch - and I mean where you're already DEEP IN the throes of Operation Bootstrap - call your bank. BEFORE that six month past due notice comes. When you're going to be a day late, call them. Work something out. Trust me, they WANT your money, no matter what you can pay. You're better off copping up to it and even saying "look, I love shoes, okay? And Junior can't accept wearing non-designer shit." The bottom line is that you gotta own up to it and figure out a way OUT of it so that you can prevent the situation in the future.

Now that you've all sat through my Economics lesson, feel free to go buy artwork and keep me paying my own rent.

And go vote on Tuesday based on real issues, because no candidate for any office can make it so that we don't have to pay a mortgage. At the least, go vote so these CNN trucks can get the hell off my running route.