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Monday, November 29, 2004

This disaster is brought to you by Krispy Kreme

My neighborhood had a disaster the other day.

Of sorts.

It was a dark and stormy night, which I slept through. North by a mile, a nearby subdivision got hit by a twister that sheared off roofs, toppled trees, ripped off siding, and made a general nuisance. No one was hurt though, yet the disaster made the nightly news and of course the weather channel.

And yet within minutes the scene was all sealed, antiseptic, like a breach in the Matrix. The guys with the shades were there, serious like police, manning the barricades. The official trucks made it though, of the county, the city, the power department, the water department, and the Home Depot truck. They were handing out rakes, all neighborly like. But the real neighbors were behind the barricades, this was a job for the caring web of authority. Later, All-State insurance vans buzzed the neighborhood with smiling adjusters with clipboards. The place hummed of jig saws and hammers. It was all better and soon, and I didn't have to care, or even care to remember that the disaster ever existed.

That's the thing about good government, it relieves you of the inconvenience of handing out rakes, helping with the reconstruction, even offering a neighbor a donut. It's all done for you, it's in the bylaws of our government, paid for by out taxes, and carried out by smiling people in shades. And if you ever deny it, rebel against it, then you might as well disconnect yourself, exist on pea soup, and live in the center of the earth. And you know something? Against the dramatic grain, no one in our perfect world will rightly care.


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