One time I dreamed I was passing through Simpletown, USA. I had pulled over in a tidy quiet neighborhood hoping to find a patch of shade to catch a quick nap and a respite from an unusually blistering April sun.
You know how road trips can be, you drive for long stretches and accumulate just enough trash in your car to be annoying. I was looking for a bin to dump my plastic in but all I saw were trash cans. A tall, ruddy dopey looking fella whose best days were decades behind him, though he didn’t know it, was coming out of a home with a For Sale sign on the lawn.
A picture of his goateed face was above the slogan “Tired of WINNing yet?”
I asked him if there were any recycling bins around. He looked at me then my vehicle.
“California? That your car?”
I thought it was an odd question, given the only other vehicle on the street was a black Escalade with a MAGA bumper sticker opposite a red WINNing with WINN Realty sticker.
“We don’t recycle here,” he said. “It all just ends up in the same place.”
I didn’t answer.
“Where you from?”
San Diego, I told him.
“Yeah, but where are you from?”
“San Diego.”
He considered me a moment longer.
“You Californians do all that hippie nonsense, don’t you? I bet Earth Day is like a national holiday to you people, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know about—”
“Recycling. Pot smoking. Vegetarianism. You people sure do love you that hippie stuff.”
“I guess.”
“I bet you believe in global warming too?”
“Well—”
“You know the weather changes all the time, right? First they said it was global warming. Then when it rains and snows and floods they said it because of climate change. Well, which is it?”
“Actually—”
“You know it’s just another way for government to tax rich people so they can pay all those people on welfare. They want to take over everything. Make it harder for hard working people to earn a living. What are all those coal miners going to do if everyone is forced to drive an electric car? Or use wind power? You know that stuff will kill you, right?”
“The wind?”
“No, the machines that make the wind. And who do you think is going to pay for that cancer treatment? You and me and with all this Obamacare, that’s who. Why should I have to pay for somebody else’s plastic surgery? I don’t want a Socialist operating on my father or mother because the government gave him cancer after they forced him to drive an electric car or take the bus.”
“So, there’s no recycling around here?”
“No, we don’t do that. But any time you ever get tired of living in Commiefornia I can set you up with a nice home. Look me up.” In the dream I passed on the offer but when I woke up I knew some nightmares are too scary to revisit.
Happy Earth Day!
