Putting a Dent In the Universe
Happy Memorial Day, or as I call it, The Holy Day of Sanctimony. It is the one day of the year that politicians who show no respect for war veterans in their votes and policies, pretend they do. I was going to write about this at length, but then read today’s updated column by the always excellent Jeff Tiedrich, and decided, nope. I can’t do it that well and with such magnificently funny bitterness.
What I can do very well is be an annoying, petty provocateur, so I want to briefly dip back into a subject that was highly controversial among readers a few weeks ago. It involves the etiquette of parallel parking. Readers were sharply divided on this issue. How sharply divided were they? As sharply divided as, say, Marie Antoinette.
So I want to further explore this issue as a means of getting readers fighting amongst themselves thinking constructively.
To recapitulate, the issue is whether it is okay to lightly tap the bumper of another car when parallel parking into a tight space. Roughly a quarter of my readers thought this was definitely not okay because it represented an unacceptable violation of another person’s property. The others thought it was fine, even unavoidable.
I have since conducted highly sophisticated demographic analysis involving Googling, and discovered something interesting. Roughly three-quarters of the readers of The Gene Pool live in cities, or have a cultural history, and affinity for, cities … and roughly one quarter don’t. That last group are committed suburbanites, or the rurally inclined. (We are going to test this with a poll in due course.)
One of the anti-tapping group in the poll was a close friend of mine, a genteel man of philosophical bent, who resides in a far suburb, and who explained his vote thus: He would be enraged at a tap, he said, “because you’ve fucked with my property without permission. So fuck you.”
In short, there is a fight out there. I am going to take the side you might expect, but urge robust debate on this. I am happy to be informed I am a beast.
I contend the quarter of you who find a bumper tap obnoxious are people who live in homes with garages and driveways. People who seldom have to fight for limited parking in tight quarters. People who are seldom confronted with the infuriating prospect of having to pay some urban parking baron $15 an hour to store your car in his hideous asphalt eyesore.
I contend you are the sort of person who recycles assiduously and considers yourself an avid conservationist but doesn’t give a crap if legit parking spots go unused, wasting urban resources and lining the pockets of pirates who visually pollute us with their buildings.
And I ask you this: Do you obsess over the soles of your shoes getting scuffed? Do you consider that an affront? Do you wash your car’s tires after every trip to clean off the dust and grime?
Isn’t there a reason it is called a …bumper?
Amirite?
I am just asking. Now, I am going to show you the bumper of my car.
Here is another bumper shot.
These are not self-inflicted, for the most part. And I don’t care about them. They do not embarrass me.
I live with a like-minded woman. Here is a photo of her rear bumper:
And that is her front bumper, at the top of this column. For what it is worth, she doesn’t consider that a dent worth mentioning. She has no idea who gave it to her, and doesn’t care. Another urban dweller. She understands.
And yes, we are aware that most modern cars are made with super-sensitive and expensive-to-replace electronically-loaded bumpers that scratch and ding easily. That is the fault of modern car manufacturers. They have chosen to make their bumpers out of Limoges. I consider them spiritually aligned with the makers of the 1971-1975 Ford Pintos, which tended to explode when hit. Ford got taken to court. So should these guys. Lobbying campaigns work, too. Cars now have trunk releases inside trunks. Why not bumpers that can be bumped?
I say soak the car manufacturers. Make them fix the problem. Take it out on them, not your fellow victims.
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Today’s Gene Pool Gene Polls:
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And finally, another reader-related matter.
A few days ago, we linked to a video supplied by a reader, April Musser, who reported she could do something quite remarkable with her eyebrows. This was it:
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In other reader-interactive news:
April’s video prompted another video from a reader, who also has something remarkable he can do with his eyes. It is … very weird. I present to you the spooky, talented eyeballs of Mr. Dean Lamborn:
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It instantly reminded Rachel of this, from Monty Python:
Okay, that’s it!
The Gene Pool is an unusual newsletter. For better or worse, you don’t get this sort of stuff elsewhere. If you think that’s just as well, you can safely ignore this rare opportunity to make a dent in the universe: