It was kind of like a punch in the gut.

I logged on last night to check the latest news before I went to bed, and I see the headlines shouting “BIGGEST BANK FAILURE IN HISTORY,” and I must confess it didn’t register on me at first because, well, we’ve being seeing similar headlines the last few weeks. It all starts to sound like a dull roar, some kind of background noise, after awhile. We’ve become used to the sounds of screaming and we hardly hear it anymore.

But then there was the picture next to the headline — the door of a bank with a familiar logo: WaMu. Hey, that’s MY bank!

Holy crap!

As you can imagine, the 24-hour customer service line was busy. The FDIC, it was said in the news, was assuring customers that all would be normal by this morning. Gee, thanks, but for some odd reason that just doesn’t make me feel any better.

What a strange, strange country this has become over the last 8 years.