next.
so i live in a suburb of vancouver, on a quiet dead-end street surrounded by other suburban style homes. now, i grew up in this kind of neighbourhood, so it's nothing new to me, but i guess as i've aged i've become more ... i dunno ... sensitive to certain aspects.
whatever do you mean, ms sundae, you may be asking to yourself (or not, but hold fucking on 'cause i'm going to tell you anyhoo, 'cause that's how i roll).
i have come to the conclusion that the suburban male is almost entirely responsible for destroying our environment. now, granted, i have a bit of a hate on for middle aged moderately affluent men anyhoo (my dad and your dad excepted, of course). i think they are obnoxious and self important and (some of) the worst drivers on the road. what is my reasoning, allow me to explain.
- SUV's - ok granted i'd give my left tah-tah for a black range rover sport with tinted out windows, but i'm not about to go out and *buy* one (mostly 'cause i can't afford to, but it's my blog and i'll adopt a hypocritical stance if i want to). they buy 'em for their wives to use for moving the children from playdate to playdate, and to drive themselves as they head to the home depot (and maybe do a little bed bath & beyond) on the weekends. do they need suv's? no. canada is fully populated, thanks very much. we don't need you to have four children, and the two that you do have will fit nicely into the backseat of a compact car. next.
- powerwashing - let me point out to you that, here in the lower mainland, it rains 97% of the time. until the day the heavens open up and let loose with a torrent of mud instead of the nice, clean, rain it currently sprinkles upon us, you really have no need to power wash your siding, your driveway, or your car. seriously. has no one in my neighbourhood noticed that we are in a global water crisis? i guess because it does rain so much here people become complacent - the idea that elsewhere in the world (heck the country) water is a rare resource to be treasured and respected. be global citizens, people.
- vacuuming - yes i said vacuuming. the guy down the road from me insists on vacuuming his car at 8am every saturday. after he power washes it. *EVERY* saturday. i feel guilty about washing my car - it's a (generally) unnecessary waste of water. *AND* (get this) yesterday, after he power washed his driveway for the third time so far since may, he used a leaf blower to dry it off. it wasa 30fuckingdegreescelcius and he's drying his driveway with a leaf blower. sweet mother of god.
- legacy - what's worse, is these men are raising a generation of children who believe that this excess consumption is the norm. they buy their kids expensive, noise polluting, powered toys (mini-motorcycles). their kids *watch* them do these random pieces of 'maintenance' with no regard to the lasting impact of those gallons and gallons of water pouring into the stormdrain, the electricity consumed to run the shopvac for the car, the gas consumed by the mower, the leaf blower, the suv, the expensive toys.
le sigh. ok rant done. i feel like buying a copy of that al gore movie and leaving it in their mailbox in the middle of the night with a 'watch me' alice in wonderland style note plastered to the cover.
hm. maybe i will. at least then i'll feel like maybe, just maybe, i've *done* something instead of sitting here silently (or not so silently) fuming.
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