July 1st, 2004:
Great Big Cars
Dearest Mary:
Living, as you do, above the Arctic Circle,
you won't be able to relate to what I am about to describe about
life here in the Boston suburbs. But things are getting bigger.
And bigger.
For example, cars: They are actually no
longer cars but unarmored military vehicles painted in fancy colors.
Sometimes they are trucks with names like Yukon and GoldDigger,
conjuring up images of scaling impenetrable heights while on the
way to the supermarket in a very flat, dusty place like - Dallas,
for example.
Cars themselves are about to become relics
of a bygone era. We will think of them fondly like go-karts, or
the first peddle cars we had as toddlers. They are sort of like
trucks with training wheels - a passing phase that we will outgrow.
These trucks (also known as Sports Utility
Vehicles - although I'm not sure about the utility unless it's to
store your extra set of golf clubs) have to live somewhere and are
too big for the average garage, so the next thing to get bigger
is - you guessed it - the garage.
Drive through any housing "development"
(development conjures up notices of evolution - progress, even hope
… but WAIT) and the first thing you'll notice is the size and
placement of the garage. These houses scream, "welcome to our
garage!" Our cars live at 433 Crescent Hill Lane. We are a
family of 5 (cars). The Daddy Car is a BMW. The Mommy car is a Town
and Country Luxury Van. The Teenager car is a pre-used Toyota something
and is actually a car. The Daddy's Mistress Wannabe car is a Mustang
convertible. And the fun-loving free-spirited Love Child car is
a Jeep. But it may get traded in for a Hummer if it doesn't behave.
Somewhere to the rear of the garage, a monster
house is being built in an eclectic mish-mash of French Provincial
cum Southwest Hacienda to house the owners of the cars. They will
need intercoms to find each other and possibly a map with escape
routes. But maybe that's the point; who knows?
Most of modern American life was laid out
in the grids of parking lots and highways in the years when we thought
we had an energy crisis. (I'm not sure how we came to the conclusion
that the crisis was over, but evidently somebody decided this during
the Reagan administration.) In those halcyon days, developers drew
white lines on black pavement delineating the modest spots in which
vehicles could take a break while their owners ran around inside
shopping centers. But our cars are too big for the lines. Just as
their owners are too big for their pants. We need to super-size
the parking spaces to keep pace with the vehicles. Otherwise, the
remaining car relics who think there might again be an energy crisis
will be crushed to death on parking lots all over suburbia.
I maintain there is a point to keeping some
of these petite cars around so that when the energy crisis returns
(oh the voice of gloom and doom) some of us will be able to get
out of here.
Recently there has been much made in the
news about the growing threat of obesity in American Citizenry.
Well, duh. We have to bulk up to fit into the huge cars that need
to fit into the huge garages that need to fit into the huge houses.
There has also been much made in the news about the fact that there
is a war on. Well, duh. Somebody better come up with the oil to
fuel the cars, the houses and fat, waddling us.
Usually in a war (not a video game but a
war in which somebody else's kids are getting killed dead - and
that means forever), the President of the United States asks the
good folks at home to sacrifice. Don't buy that fifth car. Don't
use that tax loophole to buy the biggest truck you can find. Do
you need a 6,000 square foot house?
But sacrifice might remind us of energy
crisis and that might remind us that we can bulk up all we want,
but sooner or later what bulks us up will bring us down.
But hey, Mary, you live in an igloo and
your dogs pull you around right? So this sounds like some weird
future fairy tale.
Will write soon. How is the seal hunt?
Love and Kisses,
©2004. Lansdowne Press, Lexington, MA 02420. All rights reserved.
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