Two shiny new Subaru Outbacks rolled off the assembly line and onto a lot in the Denver Metro area. They sat patiently, waiting for the perfect owners to find them. The kind of owners who would plaster them with "Coexist" and "Obama '12" bumper stickers; the kind who would drive not a whit over 35 mph and would eventually convert them to bio-diesel or hybrid fuel. Oh, for the day when that would happen! How marvelous life would be!
But as is so often the case in life, their dreams came only sort of true. They were bought by the right sort of people (a grey-ponytailed professor of Keynesian economics and a working mom who made her kids only organic food and never visited McDonald's). They were plastered with the right sort of stickers ("Support Public Education!" "Feed The Poor!" "Coexist"). They went to the right sort of places (Democratic political rallies; global warming seminars; Ann Coulter eggings).
Of course, there were always those days when SuperMom was in kind of a hurry, and would push her poor little Subie to ridiculous, mind-numbing speeds of 45 MPH - or higher! And sometimes, Grey Ponytail would be angry about what those Bush-loving, Limbaugh-listening wingnuts were trying to do to the country, and he'd yell at other motorists, occasionally even blowing the horn!
The Subies bore this unbecoming, un-Coloradan behavior with grace. What else were they to do? Yes, of course it was dangerous to go so fast. Dangerous to be so angry. But they were only cars: they couldn't force their owners to be anything they weren't. If they thought about it, all the organic grocery stores and farmers' markets and rallies really made up for it.
Until that day, that fateful, horrible day, when SuperMom was in a hurry, and Grey Ponytail was angry, and they found themselves on the same road at the same time, hurtling toward disaster.
Grey Ponytail listened to Air America and smacked his steering wheel and ranted about tax cuts as the sun slanted in through his passenger-side windows. He was on his way to the Aurora arts district on this fine, lovely morning, planning to swing by the Fox theatre and buy his season tickets. Very important to support the arts, you know. He observed the de facto speed limit, and kept himself even a little under. No one needed to go faster than 30 MPH, really. Everyone should leave enough time to get where they needed to go at that speed, and if they didn't, they should suffer the consequences of being late.
SuperMom was late to drop of kid 1 at daycare, and kid 2 at the public school across town - you know, the better public school. Thank God Colorado was an open-enrollment state: she might have had to pay for private school! Sure, she could afford it - why else would she work? - but then she wouldn't be able to tell everyone how committed to state-funded schooling she was. Her friends wouldn't approve.
She sped along, easily outmaneuvering the other traffic, until she hit Havana north of First Avenue. The street was down to two lanes in each direction. In front of her, a low-rider doing 32. To her right, another Outback doing 30. She didn't want to anger the low-rider - who needs to get shot at 8 in the morning? But she couldn't quite get around the other Subie, either. She waited, getting as close to the low-rider bumper as she dared, until she could cut off the other Outback, and then made the lane change.
10 seconds...20...30! Yes! She was in the clear, she'd made the change! Just another couple of feet over the line, and -
SMASH!
Grey Ponytail had taken this moment to speed up to 32, not wanting to allow a gap in the traffic pack. That wasn't the Colorado way. He slammed into SuperMom's bumper.
And that was how both little Subies - put upon, maltreated, abused - ended up on the back of a tow truck I saw the other day.
Or at least, that's how it happened in my mind.
Showing posts with label dumbassery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dumbassery. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
It Was Only A Matter Of Time
Bacon is in the first grade. She attends a charter school that we chose for its academics, its uniforms, its proximity to our home, and the fact that last year, when she started kindergarten, it had no restrictive food policies or silly health lessons about exercise.
I knew that raising a kid with HAES, to be an intuitive eater, to love her body would be difficult. I knew I'd come up against some pretty determined people who would think they'd have her best interests in mind when they suggested other methods, when they pooh-poohed Family Feeding Dynamics and were aghast that, yes, I have fed my kid McDonald's and agreed that it tasted good, and was a treat.
I knew it would happen. I thought I had at least a little more time before her school started crusading against all things "unhealthy".
She received this assignment on Friday:
This year we are challenging our school community to establish healthy habits at home. Starting Friday, September 24, 2010, students will have weekly homework for physical education class. Students will be required to fill out activity logs for the time they are active when they are not in school. We are encouraging families to work together and find ways to be active and start establishing those healthy life habits. Every two weeks students will receive a blank activity log. It is their responsibility to find ways to be active so that at the end of each week they have accumulated at least 150 minutes. At the end of the two weeks they will return their completed activity log to their homeroom turn in bin and receive a blank one. The activity logs will be part of the student's physical education grade and follow the school homework policy. Students may count any physical activity done outside of the school hours (before and after school activities/sports count). Biking, swimming, playing at the park, skating, sports, &walking, are all examples of ways to be active. T.V and video/computer games do not count as activity time. Please help your students to find fun ways to be active and start living a healthy lifestyle together! Get up and play 60 a day! If you have further questions please contact [the gym teacher].
You'll notice it assumes, three times, that we and our students don't already have any healthy habits. Considering this went out to all nine grades of the school - K-8 - I find that astonishing. Not one family in that school is athletic? None of these kids play sports? Oh, but wait, they do - since sports count toward your obsessive total - so ...? I also like that she makes a point to tell us that watching television is not physical activity. All these years, I've been sitting on my ass, needlepointing or reading or scrapbooking while in front of the tube, and NOW I learn that didn't count as exercise?! WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME!
Of course Bacon will not be participating. I'm sending an email, bright and early Monday morning, telling them that she won't be participating and why: it's antithetical to our values as a family. I refuse to teach my six-year-old that exercise only counts if you write it down, and that the only way to be healthy is to monitor yourself. I'm pretty sure she'll manage to absorb that message someday - she is, after all, a girl in America.
They've placed restrictions on snacks, too. Did you know that plain honey-graham snacks are cookies? Cookies. Like Oreos or Chips Ahoy!. We're allowed to send fruit, veggies, cheese, unflavored crackers, and water.
Unflavored crackers and water. My, that sounds like a nutritious snack, doesn't it? You'd be so depressed eating it, you wouldn't be able to absorb a damn bit of good from it. Also, I'm not sure what constitutes "unflavored". Silly me thought plain bunny grahams were unflavored, but then, I also thought they weren't cookies. I mean, I'm fat: shouldn't I be able to tell a cookie from a non-cookie?
I have a sneaking suspicion that this is probably all part of federal funding and Michelle Obama's fatwa against fatties, which just compounds my anger. Bad enough that the school is meddling in my family's health practices, but that they're probably doing so under the aegis of the fucking feds?
There's no way to look at this in a good light. There's no way to not rock the boat. I've been a pretty passive activist, mostly due to my personality, my anxieties; there's no way for me to subvert this without standing up and screaming about it.
Let's hope I've got the lungs for it.
I knew that raising a kid with HAES, to be an intuitive eater, to love her body would be difficult. I knew I'd come up against some pretty determined people who would think they'd have her best interests in mind when they suggested other methods, when they pooh-poohed Family Feeding Dynamics and were aghast that, yes, I have fed my kid McDonald's and agreed that it tasted good, and was a treat.
I knew it would happen. I thought I had at least a little more time before her school started crusading against all things "unhealthy".
She received this assignment on Friday:
This year we are challenging our school community to establish healthy habits at home. Starting Friday, September 24, 2010, students will have weekly homework for physical education class. Students will be required to fill out activity logs for the time they are active when they are not in school. We are encouraging families to work together and find ways to be active and start establishing those healthy life habits. Every two weeks students will receive a blank activity log. It is their responsibility to find ways to be active so that at the end of each week they have accumulated at least 150 minutes. At the end of the two weeks they will return their completed activity log to their homeroom turn in bin and receive a blank one. The activity logs will be part of the student's physical education grade and follow the school homework policy. Students may count any physical activity done outside of the school hours (before and after school activities/sports count). Biking, swimming, playing at the park, skating, sports, &walking, are all examples of ways to be active. T.V and video/computer games do not count as activity time. Please help your students to find fun ways to be active and start living a healthy lifestyle together! Get up and play 60 a day! If you have further questions please contact [the gym teacher].
You'll notice it assumes, three times, that we and our students don't already have any healthy habits. Considering this went out to all nine grades of the school - K-8 - I find that astonishing. Not one family in that school is athletic? None of these kids play sports? Oh, but wait, they do - since sports count toward your obsessive total - so ...? I also like that she makes a point to tell us that watching television is not physical activity. All these years, I've been sitting on my ass, needlepointing or reading or scrapbooking while in front of the tube, and NOW I learn that didn't count as exercise?! WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME!
Of course Bacon will not be participating. I'm sending an email, bright and early Monday morning, telling them that she won't be participating and why: it's antithetical to our values as a family. I refuse to teach my six-year-old that exercise only counts if you write it down, and that the only way to be healthy is to monitor yourself. I'm pretty sure she'll manage to absorb that message someday - she is, after all, a girl in America.
They've placed restrictions on snacks, too. Did you know that plain honey-graham snacks are cookies? Cookies. Like Oreos or Chips Ahoy!. We're allowed to send fruit, veggies, cheese, unflavored crackers, and water.
Unflavored crackers and water. My, that sounds like a nutritious snack, doesn't it? You'd be so depressed eating it, you wouldn't be able to absorb a damn bit of good from it. Also, I'm not sure what constitutes "unflavored". Silly me thought plain bunny grahams were unflavored, but then, I also thought they weren't cookies. I mean, I'm fat: shouldn't I be able to tell a cookie from a non-cookie?
I have a sneaking suspicion that this is probably all part of federal funding and Michelle Obama's fatwa against fatties, which just compounds my anger. Bad enough that the school is meddling in my family's health practices, but that they're probably doing so under the aegis of the fucking feds?
There's no way to look at this in a good light. There's no way to not rock the boat. I've been a pretty passive activist, mostly due to my personality, my anxieties; there's no way for me to subvert this without standing up and screaming about it.
Let's hope I've got the lungs for it.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Kroger Knows The Secret Of Time Travel
Seriously, y'all. Their benefits department knows all sorts of secrets, obviously, because they just sent us a big, glossy brochure about how to get big-money rebates on our health insurance simply by going back in time and picking skinny ancestors with low cholesterol, low blood pressure, and low blood sugars.
Of course, that's not what they said. No, they had to couch it in coded language, but I know what they really meant. Obviously, telling us all that if we have below a certain BMI, blood pressure reading, blood glucose level, and total cholesterol count will result in us being given back money was a giant indicator that we need to go back in time and choose "healthier" ancestors.
Ignore, for a moment, the fact that BMI is a useless measure of anything on an individual. Ignore, for a moment, the fact that doctors still don't quite understand cholesterol, and that having a good ratio of "good" to "bad" cholesterol is probably more important than the total number. Ignore the fact that all of these measures are determined in the majority by our genes. If you can change your body, we'll give you money!
The underlying fallacy here is that we are in charge of our own health, of course. I could eat wonderfully and walk five miles a day, and my BMI and cholesterol will still be high. My blood pressure would probably be abnormally low, but who cares if you cost the company more in emergency-room head-trauma incidents because you pass out if you stand up too fast? At least you wouldn't be about to keel the fuck over from a heart attack!
The whole brochure was full of such "helpful" advice as "Eat fruit for dessert!" "Take the stairs instead of the elevator!" "Fuck you if you're disabled!"
Well, no, they didn't say that last part, any more than they said you should invent time travel and change your genes. But that's the only way some of us are going to get those rebates, despite being given completely clean bills of health from our doctors.
Way to go, Kroger!
Of course, that's not what they said. No, they had to couch it in coded language, but I know what they really meant. Obviously, telling us all that if we have below a certain BMI, blood pressure reading, blood glucose level, and total cholesterol count will result in us being given back money was a giant indicator that we need to go back in time and choose "healthier" ancestors.
Ignore, for a moment, the fact that BMI is a useless measure of anything on an individual. Ignore, for a moment, the fact that doctors still don't quite understand cholesterol, and that having a good ratio of "good" to "bad" cholesterol is probably more important than the total number. Ignore the fact that all of these measures are determined in the majority by our genes. If you can change your body, we'll give you money!
The underlying fallacy here is that we are in charge of our own health, of course. I could eat wonderfully and walk five miles a day, and my BMI and cholesterol will still be high. My blood pressure would probably be abnormally low, but who cares if you cost the company more in emergency-room head-trauma incidents because you pass out if you stand up too fast? At least you wouldn't be about to keel the fuck over from a heart attack!
The whole brochure was full of such "helpful" advice as "Eat fruit for dessert!" "Take the stairs instead of the elevator!" "Fuck you if you're disabled!"
Well, no, they didn't say that last part, any more than they said you should invent time travel and change your genes. But that's the only way some of us are going to get those rebates, despite being given completely clean bills of health from our doctors.
Way to go, Kroger!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)