How to survive a recession while stranded at sea

Like many of you, I woke up in my lifeboat floating in the middle of the ocean to find out that the United States very may well be entering another recession. While you hear the word "recession" mentioned a lot by economists and on the lips of the wind as it sprays salty water across your life raft, not everyone knows what a recession is.

A recession is basically what happens when rich people in suits point and frown at red numbers and down arrows. Anyone who has ever frowned before knows that it is not good to be frowning!

What does that mean for you?

You and your fellow shipwreck survivors are fully dependent on passing yachts to take you to safety. A recession, however, brings the buying of luxury boats lower than the murky bottom of the salty mistress your lifeboat is precariously resting on. With yacht sales down, there goes your ticket off this floating, rubber hell!

How do you protect yourself?

1.) Work as much as you can.

Jobs during a recession don't always pay well, but any job, even if it's something as tedious as counting the number of seagulls that fly by, is helpful. A bad job is better than no job, even if you are only getting paid in fingernails. Stick with it, even if your commute is all the way to the other side of the raft.

Some recession-proof jobs:

• Wave watcher
• Storyteller
• Poop bucket emptier
• Dolphin pointer

2.) Sell anything you don't need.

It might be difficult to get rid of the only shoe you haven't eaten yet, but it doesn't really do you much good if you don't have anywhere to walk to begin with. Think of all the dried seaweed salads you can buy for the cost of your left shoe. In this economy, any little bit helps!

Sellable items:

• Fish teeth (caught using a net made from your hair)
• Hair (cut using fish teeth)
• Necklaces (made out of hair and fish teeth)

3.) Be resourceful.

A belt may have once been used to hold up your pants while you worked the deck of a ship, but now that your ship has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, you no longer have a use for those pants anymore, except as flag to wave down overhead planes. No need to toss that belt to the waves however! The metal buckle and leather strap work great to fend off sharks.

Creatively reuse:

• Shoelaces make great handcuffs on delirious fellow surviviors.
• Shoes make great self defense weapons on fellow survivors trying to tie your wrists with shoelaces.
• Oars can be used to push two tussling survivors into the ocean.

4.) Cut back.

Once a recession hits, the cost of captured rainwater goes up, while your income plummets. While you may have made two buttons a day before the recession, an economic downturn could bring that down to one button a day. If that is the case for you, it might be time to cut back from one slurp of water to a quick lick.

Ways to save:

• Conserve moisture by scratching instead of spitting.
• Don't waste energy by loudly begging the gods of the salty depths to spare you - whisper instead.
• Use less ocean water by not bathing (the stench also reduces cannibalism).