I take the last post back.
Okay. I'm a nerd and watching PBS, and there's a Que Pasas USA marathon on. And it's charming. But some walk-down-memory-lane guy was just babbling about how the show blends the two cultures, and blah blah, maintaining your cultural identity, yhadda, yhadda... he said the following line. And there might as well have been a needle scratching off the record...
"Even with American citizenship becoming as inevitable as lawsuits and garage sales..."
Huh?
Lawsuits and Garage Sales? These are experiences that are so common as to be inevitable? Lawsuits? Garage Sales? Furthermore, I infer from these examples that American Citizenship is a bad thing. I mean, a lawsuit is a bad thing... and a Garage sale... well, it's not exactly a POSITIVE thing. Still, if we're going to lump American Citizenship in with Lawsuits and Garage sales, maybe we could choose a more common negative aspect of the human condition...I mean, "Death and Taxes" is the first expression that comes to mind...and if I wanted to be homey, I'd say something like "Traffic Jams and Lines at the Grocery Store?"
Lawsuits? Garage sales?
He even CHUCKLED while he said it!
It's not that far off, I guess. Everyone that we sue in my office... whenever I check the docket, they have like five previous lawsuits filed against them, or by them... I know I see a parade of indignation and principle march through my office every day. And it just means, billable hours! Yay fighting for principle! At $185/hour! $225 if my boss is doing it! Stupid retards! SUE! SUE! SUE! (No, really, unless you have BIG money at stake, suing people is a ridiculous activity.)
And Garage Sales? I can't remember ever having gone to a Garage Sale. Ever. Really.
I don't know why that rubbed me so wrong... but it was the cavalier way that he said it, sort of inflamed lots of the things I don't like about living down here. "It's as inevitable as a lawsuit, because you're probably going to dick over a whole bunch of people in your life, because you have no respect for, or regard for anyone else around you, and at least one of them is gonna sue ya!" "It's as inevitable as the fact that every weekend, your neighbors sit outside with their assorted junk spread over their lawn or breezeway, and other neighbors come to pick through their crap and take it home, because they're greedy!"
American citizenship is as inevitable as lawsuits and garage sales. Que carajo.
posted by SuperBee at 8:17 PM
3 Comments:
I guess it depends on where you are. In Alabama, lawsuits are as inevitable as lines in Walmart. And, if you know how to do it, garage sales ROCK! I got a sturdy metal government issue office desk- you know, that sort of fleshy tan color with a formica top-for $5. $5 worth of paint later, and it was glossy black with a granite finish top, suitable for any boy's room.And I get picture frames, paintable and with glass, for 50 cents or less. Of course, sometimes you find nothing but broken Transformer toys and sad late-80's clothing. Come to think of it, estate sales are better, but garage sales, to the savvy shopper, are fabulous. Inherent cheapness helps.
4:35 AM
It's not the garage sale that I don't like - it's the choice of "garage sale" to... oh, I don't know.
When I've driven past garage sales, all I've ever seen is crappy plastic furniture, worn-out clothing, and stained tupperware. Not exactly inspiring to me. :)
5:05 AM
You have to get out and root around for the good stuff, which isn't always there, and if I had the money to go to Restoration Hardware everytime I wanted a new bit of something, I wouldn't garage sale either!
12:09 PM
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