If Self-Pity were an Olympic Event.....

...there'd be a lot of pushing and shoving at the medals podium, or am I wrong? Every day each of us encounter people against whom some egregious wrong has been committed. It's a miracle, to hear them tell it, that the heavens aren't in a state of incessant scream over the outrage(s) they have endured. With nothing more than your eye contact as encouragement, they'll recite their litany of lamentations, not really caring if you're listening or not.

Poor Job-if he were to come back now, would have to endure a near perpetual hold before having the opportunity to speak to a customer service representative, and would endure a practically countless recitation of the mantra, 'Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold for the next available representative.'

I heard of a fellow the other day angry about a used car he bought having to go through the CT Department of Motor Vehicles Emissions Testing, and then learning that because the previous owner had failed to bring the car for testing in 2005, he needed to go again and was angry about how many more times he would have to endure this bureaucratic Hades. Actually, I didn't hear about, I read about it. It was a letter to the editor of one of the local newspapers.

I'm not sure what he hoped to have happen because he wrote to the newspaper. It seemed to me he might have been better advised to write to the CT DMV. Nostalgic sidebar, but with a point: I can recall as a young motorist in New Jersey how the annual mechanical and emissions tests were done at the same time in the inspection stations. Here in the Constitution State (with about 20% of the cars Jersey has), you can tell from the condition of so many of our vehicles, there are no mechanical inspections at all except when a vehicle is bought and sold and if it's older than X number of model years, not even then.

I have never in my life seen as many one headlight or smashed up windshield cars as I've seen here-and I shared highways in Europe with the luckless, lunchless former hostages of the Eastern Bloc, enjoying a day's outing in rolling rust buckets held together literally with Band-Aids but in perfect mechanical order, after the wall fell. Nice work CT DMV, and congrats to my fellow Nutmeggers for building a system with no authority and no power.

I don't know the letter writer, but I wasn't surprised to read he and I share the same zip code-and in all honesty, I'd have been disappointed if he weren't from Norwich, because he just sounded like it. I'm thinking he wrote to the newspaper in the hope that some one such as I, the physical embodiment of the Soul of Helpfulness, might offer him insight. Another wish come true!

Here's the dealio, letter writer: we are the only species who despoil our environment rendering it uninhabitable for ourselves and others. We are nomads by nature and necessity and are nearly viral in our expansion and our need and greed. If we were truly interested in our air quality, we'd build mass transit systems that work, use them and sell our cars. Instead, we buy Birkenstocks and put 'Save the Earth' bumper stickers on the tailgate windows of our Scandinavian built station wagons. Oh yeah, and we write letters to people who are in absolutely no position to effect any form of change or improvement in our situation. We prefer problems that are familiar to solutions that are not.

If we can all agree to just talk and write op-ed pieces and letters to the editor about how awful the situation in Darfur must be, how terrible the housing market is right now, how utterly and absolutely wrong "The War" really is (I love the use of the capital letters and the definite article!) or how extremely tight the home heating oil market will be this winter for so many citizens across the Snow Belt, then we NEVER NEED TO DO ANYTHING about any of it. Mission Accomplished (though there's no aircraft carrier in sight).

We're fans of The Bard and learned the truth behind the lines 'to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by thus opposing, end them' really means don't rock the boat because that makes waves. We've concluded if we never do anything we can't do anything wrong. And if claiming to be Hostages of Hades helps us to avoid taking any responsibility or consequence for any action, then sign us up. And if we act before midnight, tonight, we can get a free tee-shirt ($4.95 for shipping and handling), "I'M A VICTIM, TOO" (call now for best choice of colors and sizes). Race ya to the phone.
-bill kenny