#27 Drought it Out

Here in the great Northwest we are officially in a drought. The snow pack in the mountains is twelve feet less than it should be. That’s right, twelve feet. That means when it’s time for the big spring melt-off to fill up the reservoirs, there ain’t gonna be nothing to melt off. You can’t get wool from a Chihuahua if you know what I mean.
So I was watching this guy at a rental store the other day. He was removing the dirt from the back of his delivery truck, and much to my delight, he wasn’t using a hose to do so. A positive, drought relief step: Don’t use your hose to spray anything but plants, and then only to give them a drink. The alternative the guy picked to do the job was a little suspect, though. He was using one of those gas-powered blowers. You know the ones; two-cycle oil-spitting noise-monsters louder than an AC/DC concert in your neighbor’s back yard. Bad idea, I’m thinking. Cause if things weren’t bad enough with our water shortage, the oil barons have decided to artificially jack up the price of gas again this summer. And so it won’t be too much of a shock, they’re already easing into it here in the early spring. Nice of them to think of our delicate mental equilibrium. Reaming us with an extra 50 cents a gallon all at once might have actually caused a protest that even a code orange alert couldn’t have diverted. So with the price of gas going up, profligate pumping of petroleum for anything, even a little blower motor, isn’t going to fly. What’s a lazy cleaner to do? I mean, even electric-powered blowers are going to be a problem. The administration is Washington D.C. is talking about raising the price of hydro-electricity generated in our great Northwest to “market” rates. Hmm. I seem to remember some market rate, deregulation thing in California a few years back. And power companies colluding to jack up the “market” rate to astronomical limits during a big heat wave, and millions of Californians on fixed incomes collapsing in their un-air-conditioned hothouses and the economy of California crashing and the stock market plunging down and a nationwide recession. And somehow the name Enron comes to mind. So I’m guessing the market rates of Bonneville power will, um, stay about the same. Ahem.
And, let’s not forget: With the drought there’ll actually be less water to run through the dams to generate the power that will cost a boatload more so we can expect a surcharge as well. As in: “Yes Sir. Grab my ankles, Sir.” I hope they at least kiss us first.
My advice? Invest what little money you expect to have left in a simpler and less water- and energy-dependent cleaning technology. You don’t put gas in it. You don’t plug it in. And you don’t have to adjust its nozzle or coil it back up when you’re done. It’s new from K-TEL and it’s sweeping the country. It’s called The Broom. And just think of all the calories you’ll burn... America, ya gotta love it.