It’s the ninth inning, or the fourth quarter with just seconds left on the clock. It’s like having four days left before a big midterm paper is due. It’s like … oh, forget the cliches, we’ve seen this all before: Congress is coming back to Washington from a week-long recess, there’s just four days left until $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts begin — but this time, lawmakers are making no effort to sort it out before the deadline.

So what is Congress doing this week? Here’s a quick primer:

1.) Sequestration Sequestration Sequestration: (Want to impress someone? Tell them it’s “secuestrar” in Spanish.)