I have something to confess that will get me in trouble with my family, my friends, and possibly much of the planet. I have trouble being “green.”
I don’t dispute the need to be environmental. Clearly, we are warming the planet, clearly, with bad effects, and clearly, we must do all we can to reduce them. But just as clearly, I also can’t help noticing that every new environmental edict boils down to the same thing: More work for Judy!
I realized this while staring at a cookie sheet in my sink. The cookies had baked just a tad longer than recommended, to the point where they appeared to have bonded chemically with the sheet.
I’d tried cleaning it with soap and a scrubber. No change. I’d soaked it overnight. Still no change — not with the sheet, not with the cookies. Nothing was going to budge those little lunar landscapes, not without extraordinary measures. But what?
Just then, I heard a raspy voice from my right shoulder, “Do it! Take the easy way out! Just use one of those oven sprays, wait a few minutes, and splish, splash, you’re done!”
“Oh, sure, poison us all with those toxic fumes!” This was a softer voice, from my left. “Do you have any idea what’s in those chemical sprays? Anyway, all you really need is baking soda and elbow grease.”
“Have you looked at that cookie sheet?” said a third voice. This one was my own. “I’ve tried all that. Now, it’s either chemicals, or something so sharp it’ll probably also remove the ‘nonstick’ coating…”
“A little late for that!” both shoulders agreed.
“…or just toss it in the garbage and get a new cookie sheet,” I concluded.
“You mean toss it in recycling, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I replied.
It’s always the same. Whatever you want to use, there’s something wrong with it, and something useless to use instead. Filthy windows? Vinegar and newspapers. Mildew? Don’t use bleach, use vinegar again. Soap scum? Just make a paste of baking soda and dish soap and scrub with a toothbrush.
“That’s how they punish people in boot camp,” I told my left shoulder. “But it only works because they have nothing else to do all day. Whereas I have a day full of errands, and work, and a family to feed.”
“Um, about that,” said the soft little voice. “Have you heard of Michael Pollan? In his book, “Cooked,” he says we shouldn’t even use microwave ovens!”
“Whyever not?” growled my right shoulder.
“He says there are things you only learn while you slowly cook food.”
“You know what I learned? To use the microwave!” I shouted. “Do you remember what our life was like, before that?”
We all observed a minute of silence. The day I learned to steam rice in the microwave was almost a miracle. For the first time, I could have rice for dinner one night, without spending the next two scrubbing both the pot it had vulcanized in, and the stove it had boiled over on.
“I’m not going back to that. I won’t!” said the little voice from my left. It shook with emotion.
“For once, I agree with the little guy,” rasped the right.
“Relax,” I told them both. “I’m with you on this.”
Both voices fell silent. Sometimes I’m afraid the environmentalists won’t be satisfied until they’ve rolled back every single labor-saving invention since the Stone Age. Only then will our lives be pure.
The thing is, back in the Stone Age, the planet only had to support a few thousand people, who –for another thing– all died in their twenties. Of old age.
And here’s my final problem with all this right-living: It’s just so dreary! How can you justify new shoes, or new clothes, or a new car, in a world where everything is made of “post-consumer waste” (which always makes me think it belongs in a latrine)? No, unless you want to find yourself on trial someday for wrecking the planet, you’d better do everything the hard way –walk to the store and back, a dozen times if need be– and you’d better use those reusable cloth bags, too.
It’s a lifetime sentence of hard labor, full of discomfort and hand-me-downs, until you finally die and get put in the ground on the “organic” side of the cemetery, where the grass is cropped short by a flock of free-ranging sheep. At least their milk will make a lovely artisanal cheese. We’ll think of you as we melt it slowly, in the sun.
