Not Me!

We were kids, if 25 year-olds should be considered kids. Steve had an old rusted out Buick with a loud exhaust and mostly bald tires.  All of us had long hair. Bob had the longest. We were out of the service by then and living life...enough beer to drown Otis the Drunk, Boones Farm by the case, and drugs every other night. (We would have gotten high every night, but we made a pact to drop, smoke, pop, snort, every other night just to make sure we wouldn't become addicts...and NO needles.)

One day, it was bitter cold, we were bundled up (the Buick didn't have good heat, enough to keep the frost from completely obscuring the windshield), Steve was wound tight (Steve looked and acted like John Belushi), and decided to do a few harmless donuts in the mostly empty A&P parking lot. I was in back, Bob was riding shotgun, and I got the bright idea to see if Steve could "drive with the Force", slipped over behind him, threw my scarf over his eyes, and tied it off behind his head. Steve's right foot panicked and hit the floor. That rotted exhaust belched out a roar that woke up the cashiers in the supermarket. Steve's tongue hung out the side of his mouth like a dog ready to drop, Bob roared in the front seat, I kept pulling on the scarf and the old Buick spun one way, then the other, whipping around the parking lot like a big brown turkey with no head.

Well there was one lady who deemed it necessary to shop that night. Steve finally figured out that if he held the steering wheel in one spot, the car would quit whipping wildly in ten different directions at once. Apparently his right foot had a mind of its own. Finally he hit a light pole, Bob smacked his head on the window, and I slid all the way over to the passenger side, pulling the scarf off Steve's face in just enough time for Bob to punch Steve in the side of the head. And the Buick stopped sliding right next to the shopper's car. Well this woman got out of her car and started waving her arms like the scarecrow on the Yellow Brick Road, screaming at the top of her lungs about us hippy bastards ruining the country. Strangely enough, she happened to have a "Peace and Coexist" sticker on her bumper. Steve didn't say a word, Bob got out and tore the bumper sticker off, tossed it into the snow, turned his back to us and peed on the sticker. The woman got this God-awful look in her eyes, opened her purse and stuck her hand inside. There were no cell phones then, nor was there mace sprays. there were however guns...and most people carried them and we weren't stupid. Bob leaped over the hood head first and was in the car before Steve got the Buick into gear. We backed out of there quicker than we drove in, leaving that peaceful woman to co-exist with her .22.

So that started my studies of gross hypocrisies. Over the years, my list has grown, been pared down, grown again, and pared down over and over. As our culture changes, as technologies changes, as our world spins faster and faster, hypocrisies change. Although I hadn't thought much about those double standards these days, as of late I have found it necessary to rejuvenate the list. I suppose this resurgence might have been brought about by the man standing out side of the Town Hall in my town. He was talking  about how well the meeting protesting the new Verizon tower was going. His agitation level was building as he finally pitched the phone into the brick wall and screaming about the shitty reception and how much money he pays for that shitty reception.

Then there is the cute soccer mom who lives on our street. She is a great person; loves her kids, teaches them all the right ways to live, how to grow up and get along with everyone...until she gets behind the wheel of her mini-van. Teeth clinched, knuckles white, kids strapped in, she is ready for the green flag to be dropped, unless a phone call comes in, then she will of course unclench long enough to take the call.

Hypocrisies are like a monster that feeds and grows by eating its own insides. Like the people who are adamant about finding alternative energies and protest about windmills ruining the landscape. Or the avid recyclers who are dragging bags of leaves to the sidewalk, neatly placed in Home Depot paper bags waiting for the garbage truck to carry them off to the landfill. MY favorite is the State Trooper who is topped out at over 100 mph on 390, talking on the phone, driving with his knee, and tapping on the computer looking for the guy who reportedly was driving 80 mph and talking on his phone.

While I am aware of hypocrisies around me and actually watch for them for their ridiculous humor, I am a perpetrator of them myself which is hypocritical in itself since I live in total denial of it.