April 20, 2006
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It must be Spring:
The NIMBYs are out!
Lately, I sleep like a baby–that is, I wake up crying every hour or
two and usually wet myself. Seriously, I do sleep fitfully, and
often, my cats wake me up and I can’t get back to sleep. This
morning, I managed to sleep in, until this persistent banging on my
door got me up. It was Ernie, the grizzled old biker-looking guy
who works as a handyman here at the flats. He had a bright yellow
trash sack for me to fill up, and informed me sourly that some one had
complained about the mess on my porch.“Gotta look good for the tourists,” he snarled.
Our strip of cabins is right alongside one of the busiest highways
in the state, and the tour busses will be running soon. God
forbid that they should see Alaska as it really is!BTW–in case you don’t know–NIMBY means “Not In My Back Yard,” and
is used to refer with contempt to those who want their little space to
look pristine, regardless of whose rights they trample. NIMBYs
are the ones who rise up in arms when, say, someone wants to put a
women’s shelter or residential treatment center in the vicinity.
They are motivated by fear and selfishness, and I have nothing but a
fierce desire to put a few well-placed bullets in them.Ironically, they did me a favor. (This happens all the time,
since one of the underlying principles of the Universe is
EWOP–Everything’s Working Out Perfectly.) The mess HAD been
getting out of hand, and it only took a couple of hours to get a bunch
of trash bagged up and hauled out to the dumpster. Some other
stuff, I took out back and stuck under the cabin–out of sight, out of
mind. I found a bunch of books I had forgotten about,
decided to schlep them out to the library–I had planned not to come
today, but open up my stand early instead.Now I get to blog, and check my email, and check some stuff on some other sites that I had wanted to.
Maybe I won’t kill any NIMBYs today after all–heck, it is too nice a day to be sitting in a jail cell, anyway.
Comments (3)
I love your site!!!! I think we all have NIMBY’s in our lives… Out here we call them YUPPY’s and DINKS. YUPPY’s are young preppy wanna be’s and DINKS are Double income no kids. Living in NYC you have to deal with them everyday. So many times I ask myself “Do I want to sit in a jail cell for that asshole?” Ahaaa!!! Hell no!
And yeah, i’d buy a knife from that guy, probably bring a 6 pack and sit on the porch for a while and drink them too!
I’m thinking about that Gerber Chameleon III… Is it good for the pocket? What’s the size opened/closed?
Good to hear we’re not the only ones who get told to “clean it up” once in a while … we belong to a lakeside “association” that prohibits fences and tall grass. I can go along with the no fence policy, but I like long grass. So do the rabbits that live in my yard. So the first mowing of the season is referred to as “Spring Cleaning” and we let it go at that. And no, you don’t want to sit in a stinkin’ jail on a pretty day. Blessings to you.