Recently my mailbox was stuffed with correspondence from my brokerage firm. I was expecting lots of bowing and scraping and reassurance that they would pull through this thing; that my money, though decimated, was fundamentally safe; that we should have courage and stay the course and listen to Warren Buffet and “Buy American.”

Nope.

Each of the three envelopes contained a “College Savings Report Card” featuring the nauseatingly depleted value of each of my kids’ 529 funds compared against the projected cost of a private education, based on their ages.

Brutal. Brutal in a good economy. This week? Grounds for putting the money (what’s left of it) under the mattress. Can these people not read?

I’ve done my best to avoid outrage during this breathtaking elevator ride to the basement, to rein in my fear and hold steady. I’ve resisted my urge to seek someone to blame, to let my frustration cause me to act inconsistently with my family’s interests, but these letters…this is bullshit. What kind of insular, tone-deaf, bloated and corrupt company would pick this as the week to send out a mailing designed to promote anxiety and insecurity in order to drive profit? Perhaps some other month I might be able to see the irony of a company that loses half my money, pinging my anxiety to ask for more. Not now.

The letter suggested that I needed to quadruple the amount that I invest monthly with my brokerage firm’s 529 plans.

A suggestion that led me right back to the spring of 1989. At my fancy Ivy League college, my friends were interviewing at Lehman Brothers for investment banking jobs that would pay them $60,000. Not that I could have landed such a job, but it in no way interested me. I had lots of college kid ideals about being creative and bringing value to the world (a stance I have had ample opportunity to regret as I stare at a tiny royalty check, or negotiate yet another three-figure writing gig). So I went to work for a theatre in Austin before taking a teaching job in Tennessee. My classmates went off to New York to invent derivatives and start hedge funds.

By the time I started having kids, my wife and I had settled on some shared values — live well as you can, but beneath your means. Less stuff, more fun, save. When kids came along, we never bought a big house (or any house at all), while so many peers were popping for that McMansion. We kept the low-paying jobs that provided us with free housing, and started saving more aggressively. For retirement. For college.

So not being that guy at Goldman, not being that guy with the jumbo ARM, being all virtuous and living the way I want to teach my kids, and what happens? The fuckers, the bankers and the borrowers, conspire against me. Team up to take a bite out of me. And then send me this letter. Just to let me know how I’m doing. Just a helpful little check-in. Thanks, chump.

So I stamp my little foot, and tear up their letter, and write my little blog. And let the karma wheel turn. And have a sip of (somewhat cheaper) red wine. What else to do?