Monday, January 17, 2005


Licence to be Royally Pissed

So the other day I saw a Hummer H2 in local parking lot with a car-top carrier strapped to the roof.

I'll re-type that sentence for effect: The other day I saw a Hummer H2 with a car-top carrier strapped to the roof.

I have never so sincerely cursed out someone under my breath. How can this guy justify adding more cargo space atop what is arguably the largest four-wheeled beast on the roads today? Is it possible that he really couldn't contrive a means of packing into his hugeass tank-on-wheels whatever of his worldly possessions needed transport?

I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that maybe his lot was such that he had recently realized the gross lapse in judgement under which he was subject when he penned the lease for his Frigate of the Freeway and had adopted the policy of merely living out of his H2 as a make-shift RV. Maybe his monthly budget session brought him to the ultimatum of paying rent or paying for gas at 3 miles a gallon, after which he rationalized that an apartment does a far inferior job of announcing to the world, "Hey, look at me and deduce that my genitalia must be as grand in scale as my vehicle is excessive and wasteful!"


In related thoughts, I had an idea for a documentary. I would pay the Friday nite admission fee to the local cinema to watch even a half hour film of the following content. I would like to see a camera crew and a moderately-polite interview man/woman track the drivers of Hummers on the road and try to interview them when they get out of their H2s. I would like these drivers to be asked--objectively and without an air of pretense or bias--things like what made them buy their H2, if they are happy with their purchase, what their monthly gas expenses are, and how their H2 meets their particular transportation needs. I would like the interviewer to be equipped with facts informing the driver how much the gas expenses of the average economy-car-commuter match up with the typical H2 commuter, and do a quick calculation to let the H2 driver know how many children he or she could feed, clothe, and educate through Compassion International with the difference in monthly gas money alone.

I wouldn't care if this crew tracked down solo drivers of the other giant SUVs. I have nothing unique against Hummers except the added "status symbol" tag they supposedly carry. I would pay to watch a documentary like the one described above because I want to hear the H2 owner voice. I want this misinterpreted people group to be able to rationalize their very large decisions to the world; I want them to be able to plead their case to the average cynic like Scott Pearce who does nothing but assume the worst and secretly curse them out as they hum by. Really, I want to be able to secondarily look these people in the eye and hear them say that they can justify the money and gas and lifestyle they expend for the sake of [fill in the blank].

I obviously don't believe that I would hear one convincing argument/justification and would really only be looking for my own sense of justification for cursing at people I have never met.


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