As with so many hours of most days, I’m sitting here in my bedroom office overlooking the northwest corner of my house. To the right (north) is a lovely view of Cedar Lake and many would suggest I situate my desk to allow a far more lyrical view. But that is not possible because a wall of cabinets and drawers and bookshelves and radiator covers precludes this. Thus, I am left to multitask – writing my books and overseeing the daily constitutionals of a most jumbled crew. By default, I have become the neighborhood sentry.
One set of neighbors, it appears, has not set foot in a brick-and mortar store in over a decade. Covid did not alter their shopping habits – Amazon.com did. Long before the pandemic turned previously rational people into leave-it-at-the-door, food-bleaching lunatics, this particular household purchased, apparently, everything online. From toothpicks to dentures, these guys have it delivered.
I love my work and spend a lot of time here, so I get to witness the frequent drop-offs. Most are from Amazon, and I’m confident that Jeff Bezos thought of my neighbors enroute to Pluto. (And screamed, Suckers!) Others are from Whole Foods (i.e., Amazon), the rest from disparate and unmarked vehicles. There is a TV to my back, making it more audio than visual. Most of the time it’s tuned to CNN. The day the Russians invaded Ukraine I turned around to watch the beginning of the horror. Curious to hear how my Republican comrades would respond, I flipped over to FOX for a little Point/Counterpoint. For the first time ever, the two channels weren’t merely similar – they were identical. Unanimous condemnation of Russia’s offensive.
I stayed with FOX for longer than usual and found myself thinking that if I didn’t know which was which, I couldn’t discern the side of the political coin being presented. One of the FOX commentators referenced Foghorn Leghorn, the irascible philosopher rooster of long ago cartoons, “You’re doin’ a lot of choppin’ but no chips are flyin’.” I’m not really sure what he meant, but was intrigued enough to Google “Foghorn Leghorn Quotes” and read them all. Apropos of nothing, my favorite is “For, I say, fortunately, I always carry a spare set of feathers.”
Back to the war at hand, the relative ease of our lives became undisguised. While Ukrainians were fleeing their homes, parting from loved ones and a loved life, I was sitting here scrolling through the wit and wisdom of Foghorn Leghorn. As Pogo, another famous cartoon character, said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
To denounce the evil of Putin is easy. To rouse one’s self from any comfortable stupor takes thought and effort, neither of which comes cheap, nor can it be obtained from a marketplace.
And just like that, across the street another Amazon van pulls up enriching Jeff Bezos’s swag.
Dorothy
