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02/20/2009: "Confessions of a Rationator"

Sensible Opinions that You Don’t Want to Hear by Brian McNeece

Nobody likes a party pooper. Sadly, that would be me. When the confetti starts to fall at the end of the championship game, I say, “Look at the mess they’re making. My God, they’re pouring trash from the sky.”

When you watch a thriller movie with me, I say, “That’s a shame they had to crash that car and blow up that parking structure. All that destruction of perfectly good things that somebody labored so long to make. What a waste!”

I admit it. I’m a wet blanket thrown onto the fire of irrational exuberance. At a Thanksgiving feast you’re likely to hear me say, “This is way too much food; we’ve have leftovers for a week and then we’ll throw a lot of it away.”

Nobody wants to hear the logical, sensible view. What’s the fun in that?

At night my house is dark except for where the people are. I follow my wife and kids around to turn off the lights and the ceiling fans. “Why do you leave them on?” I ask them. “You’re not there to use that electricity. You should live more lightly on the earth.”

They mock me. They make fun of my adjusting of the thermostat so that for every hour of each day the heater or air conditioner is set to maximize its efficiency. If we’re not at home, climate control should be off, right? So what if it takes a few hours or the whole day for the system to bring the inside temperature back to comfortable?

I almost got divorced over a new television. The old one was still good. Sure, the on-off button had fallen out, and you had to use two remotes to get it working, but still--the picture was fine.

I rain on your parade. I can’t help it; there’s a tiny, insistent creature that claws its way from my cerebral cortex into my throat. Before I can stop it, I hear myself saying, “Why would you buy a Mercedes, BMW, or Volvo? The repair bills are astronomical. Get an Accord or a Camry or a Fusion. They’re all fine, reliable cars with good mileage.”

By the way, wash your car yourself because it takes the same amount of time to go somewhere and pay for it.

You want to buy a dark-colored car? This is the desert, bro. It’s going to be 20 degrees hotter than a light-colored car.

You want the best coffin available for your loved one? You’ve got to be kidding; a cardboard box would make your dead relative just as happy. Actually, he doesn’t care at all. Spend the money at the wake on the living people who are grieving.

See what I mean? I’m a most annoying guy when people are trying to spend their money in a way that suits them. If the recovery were going to depend on people like me buying stuff, we’d still be in 1933.

I wouldn’t have built the new local mall. We already had plenty of empty buildings, and now we have more. Why build new buildings when the old ones still work?

I don’t like meetings that take longer than an hour. Hey you, you’re getting off the subject! This meeting is not about you. My real work is waiting for me in my office.

Don’t tell me something more than one time. I heard you.

You should wash your clothes only when they’re dirty, right?

Eat the whole apple, eat the crust of the pizza, and clean your plate. Waste not, want not.

I’m the guy who goes to a company party and tells the band to turn down the volume. Don’t you know that noise stresses the adrenal system? And besides, we’re shouting into each other’s ears to talk to each other. What the band’s PA doesn’t damage, our screaming will.

Why put a plastic bag in a trashcan? You don’t put a trash bag around your plate. Just wash the trashcan from time to time. A zillion discarded trash bags are clogging up the biodegradation at the landfill.

Aren’t I a spoilsport, a killjoy, a stick-in-the-mud?

You want to pay how much to go to that motel? To sleep? They even charge you to park! Surely we know someone nearby who will share their floor.

Buy a birthday card for a friend? Do you know that most of those cards cost $5! They open it up, look at it, smile and throw it away. Write a note on a piece of paper. Make a little drawing. If you think they’d be offended that you didn’t spend $5 on them, insert the bill. They can find something they really want.

Don’t buy drinks at restaurants. That’s where they make a killing. And anyway, sodas are bad for you. Drink water. It’s free.