And Then There Were Three

It's official now. Everyone in the house has gotten sick. My wife was the last to succumb, and apparently got hit the worst, so she's in bed with a fever and the blahs. Even the cats are barfing. This isn't actually news, since they do it all the time, but at least their timing has improved. The fall season is officially here, I guess, with the attendant drop in temperature, drop in leaves, and drop-in disease. Paranoid fellow that I am, I dropped in to my local grocery store yesterday for the annual flu shot, since I'm just not fond of flu. The nurse who gave me the shot was... old. I think the people who do those traveling clinic are always old, aren't they? And they always seem to give me some kind of a look as if to wonder why I'm using up the precious vaccine.

Because I can, that's why. Back in the sixties, there was a book entitled "How to be a Jewish Mother." It was a big hit for a month or so, as I recall. Practically the only passage from the book I remember is "open your son's window so he'll get plenty of fresh air. Close your window so you don't use it up." That's how society used to be, I think. Each of us was reasonably frugal with the bounty of nature, or the bounty of man, or even the Bounty, if we're talking about paper towels. You took what you needed, and left the rest in case someone else needed some.

Not anymore. We're running out of oil, right? So what's the response? People go out and buy Hummers, giant behemoths that can manage maybe a couple of miles per gallon, all for the purpose of carrying a single person to the store for a box of throat lozenges. Some of those Hummers are even fully subsidized, with a tax break of up to $50,000. Those hummer owners (and the folks who drive other beasts, things with gargantuan names like Yukon or Excursion or Sequoia) just want to use up the oil before anyone else does.

I did a funny thing when I bought my car. I took a look at how much car I needed to do the things I do, and bought just that much car, no more. It's a Honda Civic hatchback, the fuel mileage champion of 1995, and I fill the tank maybe once or twice a month. The ten gallon tank, I might add. Oddly enough, the car manages to get me (and my stuff) where I need to go just fine. And when I need to ferry my daughter and maybe a friend, it does that too, all without guzzling an inordinate amount of oil.

So what the hell. I'll go and get more than my fair share of flu vaccine if I feel like it. I've earned it.