In the interest of not boring people to death I normally try to keep the journal entries to a minimum, but since I’m also writing this stuff down for my own benefit I think this one was worth recording. First, it needs to be known that I hate Humvees. In my perfect world I would live in a house built by Frank Lloyd Wright and engineering would follow the mantra that the simplest solution to completely solve the problem is the best. Sadly, in the real world society has been convinced by a bunch of smart advertising execs that a hulking behemoth on wheels is the ultimate status symbol. I admit that they do look cool, but in the same way that a tank looks cool — I don’t particularly want to share the road with either.
What precipitated this posting was a guy in a Humvee on one of the backcountry roads in Canyonlands National Park. I was warned that the Subaru wouldn’t have enough clearance to traverse the road, so of course I ignored that advice and set out. After I pulled over to admire a view, the guy drove up next to me and stopped to chat. During the conversation he made the comment that he was thinking about turning around, heading back to Moab to rent a Jeep, and then returning because (wait for it…) he didn’t want to scratch his paint. The excuse always given for Humvees is that you can take them anywhere; the not-so-manly caveat is apparently that you can take them anywhere unless there is a chance of harming the pretty exterior.
you should have said, “oh, yes, i know exactly what you mean,” while calmly taking a rock out of your pocket, and then, ever so gently, just thrown it hard enough to ding! right on the hood. and then ask about something unrelated. do not acknowledge that you did it. if he says anything, get mad and ask him what his fucking deal is because you didn’t do anything.
okay, i hate humvees, too. i especially hate humvees in manhattan. i especially especially hate bright yellow humvees in manhattan. i could go on. and on.
Yeah, but throwing a rock at the guy’s car would have made me evil. I think my problem is that I don’t necessarily hate the drivers of Humvees, I hate the idea of Humvees. What would be great would be to track down all of the ad execs who market the beasts, and somehow rewire their brains such that they begin thinking that pink ballet outfits, driving around on tricycles, and public flatulence are the height of cool. We need to locate Neil Rubin and get him working on this immediately.
oh, no i agree completely. you can’t hate people because they fall for it. you can only be embarrassed for them. and i know that there are people who buy those things and use them for humvee type stuff. i mean, there have to be. right? somewhere.
now if neil rubin had a humvee, i would suddenly approve of all humvees, and think everyone should be required to have one, and in manhattan you should have to have two. i saw neil by the way. he’s taller. always taller.
of course there’s a use for humvees — imagine if the forty-second infantry division decided to invade a small country by charging across the desert armed to the teeth with a contigent of toyota camrys. for that even i would have tuned in to watch the coverage from the myriad embedded reporters.
and i never really noticed the taller thing before, but you’re right. more often i see neil, he lets out his bellowing laugh, and i realize how few people in this world are capable of a guffaw. rubin can guffaw like no man who has ever walked upon this earth.