Griping Despite the Plans

The last week’s been a bit intense here at The Homestead. It’s nothing serious, but the family and I are getting a little ragged.

Dad’s not typically one to take action. He’s not a good leader, in most situations at least, so the rest of us tend to just work around him. Instead of preparing, Dad tends to sit around and gripe about the way that things are going. He’s had quite a few complaints about the U.S. government lately, of course, just like many of the rest of us. However, you won’t catch Dad doing anything – not even sitting down to write a one-page letter to one of his representatives – because that takes valuable time that is, apparently, better spent complaining and ranting.

Now, I’m all for a good rant and all. I have a few good ones in me, and will let them loose when appropriate. However, I’m also all for taking action: rant and complain for a bit, then do something about the problem…or rant while you take care of business. Instead of sitting around and complaining that hyperinflation is practically guaranteed because the U.S. has been printing money in the basement for, you know, YEARS AND YEARS, the family and I (minus Dad) are redoubling our efforts to stockpile food and other essentials. This way, if a one-pound bag of rice costs twelve bucks in the future, we don’t have to buy it...or, at worst, we won’t have to buy very much of it.

Incidentally: We’re also stockpiling other things that might not be vital to our continued existence, but are very nice to have on hand. Mom and I both have dentures, for example, so we’re building up a little stash of the effervescent cleaning tablets. These are not strictly necessary – you can easily clean the dentures without them, after all – but the tablets leave the dentures nice and fresh, and also kill off quite a bit of bacteria. They’re cheap right now, but will cost a small fortune should hyperinflation become a reality.

This week, Dad’s been particularly unhappy about the economic situation, and has been doing quite a bit of griping. Knowing him as well as I do, I would wager that he's downright terrified right about now. He’s afraid that, if a five-pound bag of flour costs seven bucks, we’ll go hungry. So he’s griping more and more often about the problems that he sees coming, even though the rest of us are actively working on a solution that we hope and pray will get us through whatever comes next.

So, even though there are buckets and shelves and such all over the house with extra food in them – and even though Dad’s sat there and watched the rest of us prepare the food to go into these storage areas (vacuum-sealing the pasta, for example), he’s still convinced that we’re all going to starve to death, like, ten seconds after hyperinflation sets in. He hears the rest of us talking about the problems that we see coming, and about our solutions. He's right there, sitting at the same table with Mom and me, when we make the weekly grocery list, including both food we eat now and food we put away for later.

Part of this is because we haven’t been actively stocking up on food and other necessities for the last two decades. Dad requires a lot of time to get used to something, whether the change is large or small. He’s still confused by the fact that yes, we have a DVD player in the living room, even though that sucker’s been sitting there for more than a year.

Dad tends to not notice things when he’s afraid, too. Like the buckets full of rice, pasta, beans, et cetera. Like the extra toothpaste and other sundries. Like the extra sodas (because we refuse to usher in the Apocalypse without caffeine, thank you very much).

So, over the last week, Mom’s been trying to reassure Dad that we have plans, and that we’re working toward bigger things. The chicks are quickly turning into chickens, for example, and the food stash is growing. Our garden went in recently, and is doing fairly well.

Dad’s not buying it, though. He’s convinced that we’re all going to die, like, three days after hyperinflation sets in. My thinking, though, is that his perspective is skewed, because he’s not doing anything productive about the perceived problem. Obviously, if he’s sitting around, doing nothing but complaining, then there’s no plan, right? Well, that’s his point of view, anyway. He isn't the only one with this perception problem, though: I'd bet that most of us have done the same thing, even if only on a very-small scale for a brief moment or two.

So, what do you do? You keep stockpiling, and you keep telling the worried family member that the rest of you are working on the problem. Invite that person to help out in some way, too. Dad works, and Mom spends part of the check at the grocery store, so Dad IS helping. He just has this idea that he isn’t doing anything, because he doesn’t go to the grocery store, or notice the extra food (even though it's right there, and even though he hears us talking about it regularly). We’re trying to gently encourage him to help out in some other way – one that he can see for himself. Mom wouldn’t mind having Dad build a few shelves for the canned food, for example, because Dad’s good at that – and his shelves would be sturdier than the ones we’re currently using.

We haven’t, however, had much luck with that. Dad might pick up that project later, but there’s no guarantee. We’ll see what happens and, in the meantime, keep showing him the plans that we’re fulfilling as we go. Maybe, eventually, he’ll get the idea.

It’s Been Quieter Since the Economy Started Sucking

When my family and I moved out here, to the middle of bloody nowhere, eighteen years ago, things were relatively quiet. We occasionally heard one or two people riding around in the area on ATVs, and we sometimes heard some noise from the trailer park behind our property. There’s a drag-racing track a few miles away and, on weekends, we heard the jet cars that the owners invited out to entertain the crowds.

However: for the most part, weekdays were quiet. People were at work and kids were at school. During summer months, there was weekend noise, but you expect that because families tend to be outside more. But most of the time, there weren’t many noises other than what nature created, and it was wonderful. I could sit outside and listen to birds, squirrels, and – at night at least – coyotes.

And because the occasional ATV rider…and the drag strip…were here long before we moved in, we were cool with all that. So our weekends weren’t as peaceful as our weekdays. That’s part of life. It would be insane to be pissed off about something that existed before you showed up, right? Right. I don’t feel sorry for people who buy homes near airports, then whine about the noise. If you didn’t want to hear jumbo jets all day and night long, you should have bought a different house. Duh.

However, a few years ago, some guy bought a buttload of acreage a couple of miles from The Homestead. Nobody in the community knew about this sale until the guy started working – and even then, we didn’t know what was happening, exactly, because he never made any announcements, introduced himself, et cetera.

We heard heavy equipment working, nonstop, from sunrise to sunset. People were clear-cutting acre after acre and moving dirt around to build…a motocross track. This earthen monstrosity turned out to be a practice track: a place where every dirtbike-riding person in the entire county could show up, pay a small fee, and ride all day long if they so desired.

I freaking hate dirtbikes. They make ungodly amounts of noise, and they’re a complete waste of time and money. One of my brothers owns one, and I despise the thing. Whenever he cranks it up, I have to listen to that infernal engine, which sounds like a cross between an anemic sewing machine and some high-school kid’s souped-up rice rocket. The high-pitched noises, which I can hear even when my door and windows are closed and my music is playing at high volume, make me homicidal. If I were given the chance to destroy just one noisemaker, it would be the dirtbike.

My brother does, however, have every right to his toy (which, incidentally, is for sale because he needs the cash for something that’s actually useful). And the guy who decided to open the motocross track near us has every right to his business. I’ve never considered trying to take away their rights, because that would be a nasty thing for me to do.

I do not, however, have to like or appreciate the noise and other annoyances that the dirtbikes have created.

The track is open seven days a week, from sunup to sundown. The owner’s children are homeschooled, so they can hop on their dirtbikes and haul butt up and down their track pretty much whenever they want – including early morning, when I like to stand outside and enjoy the birds and other wildlife before dragging my butt to school. The business owner and his family live on site, too, so they just walk outside, fire up their dirtbikes, and go.

And, of course, the rest of the dirtbike owners in the community show up to spend the day riding. Sometimes, as many as twenty, thirty dirtbikes are going at once, and the noise…well…even though there a couple of miles between the track and The Homestead, we still hear that crap.

You see…this gentleman did not have enough common courtesy to install any sort of noise suppression. He could have easily constructed mounds of dirt around the perimeter of the track, which would deflect a good bit of the ungodly noise. He could have also used cement walls, much like we see beside highways that cut through communities. Hell, he could have left some trees on his property to muffle the sounds, even. He could have done all sorts of things to keep as much of his noise as possible to himself, but he couldn’t, and still cannot, be bothered. Screw us, right?

That’s the part that bothers me the most: the guy’s utter lack of concern for the people who lived here before he bought his property. I’m thrilled that he has the right to open a business and all that, but I have to live here. I was already living here long before he showed up, and a little bit of decency would have gone a long way toward making me more tolerant of his track.

However, there is an upside to the economy sucking. The track has been nearly silent almost every day over the last several months. Back when gas was nearly four bucks a gallon here, I didn’t hear even his own kids on their dirtbikes. Beautiful. Just…beautiful. Life was almost back to normal out here. I could actually hear birds again, at least on weekdays.

Now, business is starting to pick up again, little by little, because gas isn’t quite two bucks a gallon. I do hear dirtbikes again, but it’s mostly on weekends, when I’m already drowning in noise from the racetrack. I think that I can suppress my homicidal urges as long as the problem’s mostly limited to weekends.

But if the economy continues to suck, and the track goes under? I won’t be sad at all. His business will be just one more non-essential service to close down, which is what one can reasonably expect with the current economic conditions. If he doesn’t have a backup plan by now, he’s obviously not paying attention.