Thursday night I left my kids with a friend, stopped and grabbed a pack of strawberry Hubba Bubba, and drove over to Cherry Hill’s Municipal Building to hopefully watch the cell phone tower some creeps were trying to put in my tiny hamlet not get the big ok. This 150 foot tower would be ugly, dangerous, and affect our property values.
Man, it was packed, I bet there was 100 people there. I walked past a woman in a wheelchair who later happened to be the biggest bad-ass in the room and I sat in the back, next to a friend, who gave me an adorable motherly scolding look when I started blowing bubbles. What? We were in the back row, who could see me!
It was four hours of listening mostly to white guys who I wondered if anybody wanted to have sex with, talk in a language so unbearable that the portraits of public officials from decades past that were in front of them started to come to life and make jokes at their expense. As a nonacademic, I basically in all seriousness consider myself to be a 35-year-old juvenile delinquent, one who is always waiting to slip my foot in the aisle and trip the jerk in the room. I find the language that professionals or any person who speaks in front of rooms of people to ALWAYS be peppered with words (like quantify, quantify must be in a pamphlet passed out in men’s rooms somewhere informing them if they use it repeatedly, it will hypnotize the listener to nod yes to whatever they say) that are used to make them sound like they know what they are talking about. The buzz of the lights overhead were more affective in getting through, words spoken need emotion to make them heard. Duh.
Although we were there to fight a cell phone tower, I did spend a bit of time texting on my iPhone. The irony. My head looked up when it was pointed out twice that according to some 1996 law, in no way could the potential health hazards be used to stop this tower from being put up.
I considered getting involved in local gov’t a few years back. I am a social animal, and could befriend anybody because for the most part I like everybody, and I have an interest in politics in the way that it affects us and is so embedded in everything we do that I thought maybe this would be a good place for me to park my adult self. Nope.
The lighting and climate control in those ugly rooms, the extreme length and dullness of forming agreements to effect change. I couldn’t do it. And that’s sad. I was one of the youngest people in that room. Who is going to run this place (our country) if no cool people get involved in the dull, hard work? It’s positively frightening. I believe part of the problem is all the quantifying. My opinion is nothing groundbreaking, but if charisma and even a hint of sex was allowed to enter the room instead of fear of litigation and political correctness, then maybe people like me would get involved. The world could change overnight if lightheartedness was used and treasured instead of austere correctness (ew). Here is a for instance.
I went to get a coffee at Olde City Coffee recently and when I parallel parked, I bumped into the guy sitting in his truck behind me. Now like everything I normally do well, I fucked this up too because my mind is on fire with life changes. I got out and walked over to him. He had a grumpy face and before he spoke, I said “What can I say, I’m a girl.” He laughed and it was over. Some feminist somewhere is so angry with me, but you know what? I made that guys day and instead of it being a big deal, it was done. Quick resolve, not some long drawn out 1200 page nonsense. Imagine a government where things just got resolved quickly or where logic said that health risks were allowed to be discussed when talking about the impact of a cell phone tower?
Well, the cell phone tower didn’t get approved. Great news. It was wonderful to watch my friends faces light up who work so hard trying to fight the big guys with petitions, signs, and who pay attention to what happens in our town. They may not be public officials but they do effect change, invite me along and let me sit in the back row blowing bubbles.
© Mad Question Asking – 2012 All Rights Reserved
