Mobsters are comfortable under pressure. By definition, they are used to high-risk scenarios where they could either win big or go down in flames. Just another day for them. In fact, because of their personalities and backgrounds, they tend to enjoy the pressure, because they know that for them it’s like a star athlete’s muscle memory, not a debilitating factor but an advantage – the pressure only rattles amateurs.

But for the rest of us, the average folks, having the fate of the world dangling by a thread every other week is not fun, it’s not exciting, it’s just kind of nauseating. Because unlike them we don’t have anything to gain, really, but we still have everything to lose. We lose if the mob wins, because we know that no matter what it may look like on the outside, it’s the chaos of amoral greed  on the inside. It’s a slow-motion heist. It’s a grand con.

It can’t last, they know it, and as learned mobsters they will simply grab all they can before the alarms go off. If they’re lucky, they’ll manage to muffle the alarms and just get gone with the goods, leaving the rest of us holding the bag. That bag will have been emptied. As we speak, they’re grabbing the last few bundles of c-notes out of the bottom and stuffing them into their jacket pockets. The car is at the curb, running, the driver white-knuckling the gear shift knob. I think I hear sirens in the distance.