The Things We Give Up

While the world goes to chaos all around us, everyone is talking about tightening the ol' belt. God knows that we've tightened in case of food -- but then again, my wife and I are overweight and have been on diets anyway. So I've dropped about 30 lbs or so since the crisis started -- that's 5 lbs/week since things started. Now that I can't go to Weight Watchers, I've had to save my points the hard way, because meat has become a luxury item. I weighed 296 when this started; I'm now at 266 and falling. Tightening the belt is reality to me; the hard part is finding pants that fit. (My wife has dropped about 15 lbs by the way.)

In general, cash has balanced out fairly well, with some bumps. The high price of gas means that going out to restaurants and movies is a bigger crunch -- so we don't do that. So we save the money we used to spend on entertainment, which is now spent on staples instead. Like pants and food. (BTW, some Atlanta movie theatres are offering first run films at $5/ticket and $4/matinee -- they're desperate to get people in the seats. Some are even offering ticket lotteries, prizes, and all the stuff they gave up during the 1930s.)

By talking with friends, I'm coming to a conclusion that the things we've given up are the things that frankly, we didn't want to do in the first place. Some of us have about five months of fat, literal fat and figurative fat, that is now starting to fall by the wayside.

Don't want to see your annoying sister? "Sorry, Sis, but the price of gas is going to make that impossible." Hate having to take your spoiled kid to dance lessons? "Well, we have to cut that out of the budget." In general, most of the personal obligations that we avoided and dreaded are falling to the wayside.

Furthermore, anything that we never wanted to do is falling by the wayside if we can claim that it saves us money. For me, that problem is shaving. My wife likes a clean-shaven man, but I'm the kind of person who needs to go get a shave while in the middle of shaving. Even with the ridiculous four-bladed system, I still look a little dark around the gills afterwards and by five o'clock the shadow is back in bloom.

There is always the straight razor -- if you can find one. Too much trouble. Therefore, I have declared shaving a luxury and I am back to growing my beard! By the end of the week, it will appear to outsiders as if I haven't shaven at all. (My poor wife, however, has to keep her legs shaven.)

There was, however, some ugly news that my wife told me about, since I don't watch TV news. Two Atlanta teens were found dead by the side of the road somewhere. Undoubtedly, they had been hitchhiking to get to a club downtown, and both were most likely killed by their chauffeur.

Hitching has now returned to vogue. Yes, it's as dangerous as hell, but there ain't no better way to get somewhere. (Thank God I've not needed to do it just yet.) While on my once-a-week excursion back from work, I saw not one, but two hitchhikers. Neither had that "bummy" appearance that we expect from hitchhikers. Both were guys, and both had a smile on their face and seemed reasonably well-adjusted. And I saw one car stop and give the other guy a lift!!

Still...it's dangerous. The police don't recommend it for good reason, because you don't know who you're getting a ride with. Both the hitchers and the hitchees can be nuts.

My wife is wanting to start a backyard garden. Well, I'd say that it's a little bit late in the year for that but she's saying it like an order: "we're going to have a backyard garden this year." I suggested that we grow peanuts! And my wife took me up on it! So we'll be looking into peanut cultivation. The next door neighbor-lady might give us some ideas as to how to proceed. Seriously, if you can't grow peanuts in Georgia, you're not trying.

(* * *)

I generally categorize all the peak-oil commenters the same way that I categorized the commenters on the Virginia Tech massacre -- it became impossible to listen to any of them. They had no new ideas -- the gun-control advocates stated that the massacre was why guns should be banned; the pro-gun crowd stated that it was why everyone should be armed. The same old arguments were hashed out, nothing was done and no one brought any new idea to their table. Rather, they just wanted to showcase all of their old ideas.

Most of the peak-oil complainers, to me anyway, seemed to be in one boat or another -- people whom I suspect have secretly wanted the crisis to happen. One group is the ex-hippies, who just hate technology and capitalism period. I called them the group that won't be happy until everyone is joining hands and singing "Kumbaya". They get to trot out all of their old ideas.

The other group is the right-wing survivors who hate society and government. Their dream is a giant pyramid of Campbell's soup cans, where they sit on top and take shots at anyone daring to look in their direction. They also trot out their apocalyptic version of the personal future.

However, there are others out there, who aren't secretly gleeful that this happened. You can't assign them to any of the above categories.

Take my pal, L. L lives in Mississippi and is a right-wing Republican. He went to Iraq, not as a soldier but to work as an independent contractor, and he was a 100 percent Christian true believe in the justice of the war. (When they had him working in a prison, he decided enough was enough and got out of Iraq just before the crisis really hit.) L, however, has always been environmentally conscious -- because he's so damn cheap and because it fuels his popular culture obsessions.

Furthermore, he's doing everything he can in his rural Mississippi town to stave off the worst effects. He told us that he would drive a generator of his to Atlanta if either of us needed it. He'd pay for the gas for the trip out of his own pocket. We've been holding off, but we might need him to make that trip sooner or later. L would give you the shirt off his back if you asked for him. Not a bit of pretentiousness, not a bit of lecturing, not a bit of "I told you so". His only motto is, "Do you need help, buddy?" Frankly, I ain't half the man that L is, but in terms of our political beliefs and in terms of our beliefs in what will happen (I still think things will correct themselves) and what must be done, we couldn't be more different people.

By the way: the Braves went down against Barroids and the Giants, who have a 2-1 lead over the Mets in the NLCS. The Angels are beating the crap out of the Twins, and have a 3-0 lead, so it might be an all west-coast series, which would fend off baseball's embarassment.

The Phoenix Coyotes of the NHL closed their doors. One day, the players came to the building to find it locked. The NHL/Phoenix website is just a blank "work in progress" URL. The NHL is down to 26 teams. When basketball season starts...well, I wonder how much things can be attrited.