Dirty Diapers

I know our country has degenerated into a state of complete of collective ignorance about children, but today’s experience really has to set a new low, even for the "it’s-all-about-the-children" devotees. While attempting to enjoy a relaxing day of window shopping on Fourth Street, a trendy mix of up-scale shops, galleries and restaurants in Berkeley, California, I noticed a woman had set her child down on a brand new piece of furniture, which was for sale in this particular shop’s window display and began to change the child’s diapers. The child was not placed on a towel or blanket set upon the furniture, rather he or she was simply plopped there, as though she were in her own living room. Not one person, even the employees of the shop, as far as I could tell at that point, said a thing. Or even took notice. I certainly think a ruckus would have ensued had a person sat down on that chair in muddy clothes, or perhaps began drawing a picture with Magic Markers using the chair as an easel, yet, somehow, it was ok for this woman to change a dirty diaper on the chair. And it wasn’t as if the chair was made of wood or plastic; it was covered in a silk fabric and the price tag dangling from the chair’s arm listed the chair for sale at $1,200.

My disgust with the entire scene is at many levels. First, how could this mother think this behavior as acceptable? Other than a life threatening situation requiring some sort of immediate action (has the Surgeon General announced a new finding that dirty diapers left unchanged for an additional two minutes will result in the a child’s death?), was there no bathroom in the store or in one of the thirty-odd stores in the immediate area? Did she drop in by helicopter and was, consequently, unable to go out to her car to change the baby? And even if you forget for a moment the vandalizing of someone else’s property, did she really think that everyone in that store wanted to see and smell her child’s soiled diaper? What would have happened (and may well have happened in this case, as I left before the action stopped) had she gotten her child’s product all over the chair? Would she have offered to pay for the chair? A $1,200 diaper change? Hardly, remember this is a women that thinks she is entitled to this specifically because it is her child involved. Would she have even notified the store manager of her destructive activity? Again, I have a hard time imagining that. In fact, given the look she gave me when she saw me noticing her furtive activities, I suspect that when she was finished she packed her things, placed the used diaper on the chair and resumed her shopping.

Elevators

Are Americans truly incapable of understanding elevators? Or is it just Oakland? Not having spent any real quality time in New York recently, I am not able to discuss definitively whether or not people in a major city like that have the same issues. But here in Oakland, people simply lose all common sense and curb all courtesies (assuming they ever possessed any) when it comes to using an elevator.

I work in a building with 27 floors. Not a super tall building by any means, but relatively large by Bay Area standards, and certainly high enough to necessitate the daily use of the elevators. Almost every day, with out fail, I observe first hand stupid elevator behavior. For example, one of the most baffling behaviors I experience daily is when the elevator doors open, the people standing in the hallway rush in without regard to the people trying to get off the elevator. This particular behavior is vexing to me because if you remove the concept of the elevator and look at the situation from the simple point of view of space: how can two people fit into the same space at the same time? Do you sit down on lap of valet when he delivers your car to you at the front of the restaurant? No, most people, even people in Oakland, I suspect, would allow the valet to get out of the car before they get in. What is so hard about this concept? In order for you to get into the elevator, the people occupying the space inside the elevator must be allowed to move out. And if they are not getting off at your floor, then you must wait for next elevator cab which, hopefully, will have less people in it. You don’t smash into a crowded elevator. Not only is it rude, but it is dangerous.

Another sampling of elevator mis-behavior that I observe every day is where the people getting off the elevator do so at a saunter. In some cases I have wondered if it is really possible to move one’s body any slower? The elevators cabs in my building are only about five feet deep. That is not more than three or four steps for most people from the farthest reaches of the cab to the doorway. Surely you can muster three or four reasonably hurried steps out of your tired, depressed, inconsiderate body so that the rest of us, who aren’t employed by the government, can move in and get on with our task.

Ugly Yellow Stickers

It is bad enough that if you are contemplating the purchase of a ultra-high mileage hybrid vehicle here in the State of California that the choices are, generally speaking, not particularly nice looking (in fact, some of the choices are down right ugly, just have a glance at the Honda Insight), but that the State of California requires that you make them even uglier in order to use their bridges. As part of the implementation of the new law allowing these vehicles to drive in the car pool lane and to cross toll bridges for free, owners of these vehicles must deface their new cars by displaying State supplied large yellow stickers on each bumper. The purpose of which is to allow the toll keepers to easily recognize the "officially" sanctioned car and let them pass. These are the people who, by the way, rarely look up when taking your money and act so bored they wouldn’t spot a elephant loping across the bridge as long as it stopped to pay the toll. What exactly will a yellow sticker or two do? Or if you believe, as the State apparently does, that theses are highly motivated public servants manning the toll booths, then is it too much to ask the these people, who, no doubt already know every car on the road by sight, as they see a thousand copies of each pass by them daily, to memorize the three hybrids that are allowed under the new law to pass through the tolls without the deprecating decals? And is it their responsibility to enforce the law anyway? Perhaps the question is, is it too much to ask the highway patrol officer, who has to study each new law and its consequences as part of his or her job, to memorize, by sight, the three hybrids that can now be legally in the car pool lane? These horrible stickers might make sense if the number of cars effected by this law was in the hundreds and they varied in size and shape. But even if the number rises above ten or fifteen, which at this point seems highly unlikely, you can bet they will all be of the same general ilk: small, egg shaped, none-discript, tiny wheeled, slightly goofy looking, easily distinguished cars. I mean please, we are talking about a Toyota Prius and a Honda Civic, for Pete’s sake. Even the most automobile challenged person on the planet can pick these cars out of a line up. And they could do so, with reasonable reliability, without the aid of a huge, dull yellow, uninteresting sticker plastered to it.

What I find more interesting, and certainly more telling, about this new law is that it allowed only allowed three hybrids to enter as officially sanctioned, high mileage vehicles. By setting the gas mileage threshold at 45 miles to the gallon, they effectively limited the cars that qualify to these three: the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Honda InSight. The fact that none of these cars actually gets 45 miles to the gallons seems irrelevant to the government. Either the law makers in their infinite wisdom, were trying to motivate auto manufacturers through motivating the car-purchasing public to demand these higher milage cars, or they were trying to reward the current owners of the highest mileage cars and so too send a message to the pubic and the manufacturers of cars that there are further benefits to their ownership. Either way, why not do it honestly. If you set the milage threshold at a number where a small, but real number of cars can reach it, you still send the message that only the highest milage cars on the road will have these extra benefits and that the ultimate benefits of lower fuel demands and minimized environmental effects are fostered. And by setting the number at a level that actually exists, rather than a number to strive for, which seems to be what the legislators meant to do, then the consumer can actually make an intelligent buying decision and, consequently, you might get more compliance, which, seems to me, to be the point of the ugly yellow sticker.