Going Bat-Shit

I've never been very much into science.

Sure, there was a time when I put salad dressing, ice cream, bits of old candy bars, a celery stalk, and strips of cheese into a soda bottle and would leave it on the kitchen counter, covered with a towel, for a month to see what would happen, but that was largely the extent of my interest in science. I got an "A" in chemistry, probably because my teacher was insane, definitely through no actual comprehension of the Periodic Table or any tenets of Chemistry, and we know that my affiliation with Physics lasted for all of two days.

When I hear a story on the radio about something sciency, that's generally my cue to tune out and gaze out my windshield at some unsuspecting pedestrian/joggers tank-top-covered breasts and, usually, get caught doing it because, while I have limited scientific abilities, my slickness abilities are far more limited.

Yesterday morning, however, a sciency story caught my ear and actually held my interest, but it wasn't necessarily because there were no boobies to stare at, or because it was particularly interesting, it was because it made me mad.

The story, (admittedly, I didn't catch the whole thing) centered around an alleged problem that was occurring with recently-constructed wind turbines, which are wind-powered generators of electricity, just on the off-chance you didn't know that.

Apparently, these ostensibly ecologically and environmentally-friendly energy producers are secretly creating an unintended though significant problem in our fragile ecosystem:

They're killing bats.

You know-- these things:


Yikes, right?

According to scientific research, bats are being killed by wind turbines, and not necessarily in the way you might think they're being killed. See, you might be tempted to think that, because wind turbines have dangerous, rotating fan-type things that spin around at sometimes high rates of speed that bats are being essentially filleted to death as if by a Hibachi chef at your table side on a Saturday night-- but that's not what's going on at all. No, it's not the bird getting sucked into the 747's engine fan situation. Apparently, according to research (that's probably being paid for by the government, you know, while the whole country is basically out of work) the pressure that is built up inside the wind turbines is so great that, when a bat gets near the turbine, its lungs and/or other internal organs basically explode.

And I was sitting there in my car, driving to therapy, actually, thinking to myself,

"So?"

I mean-- take another look


and ask yourself


"Do I give a shit about this?"

Chances are you'll probably come up with, as I did, "No. I do not."

See, the way I look at things like this is the old Cost/Benefit method. Less dependence on oil, gasoline and coal, versus some dead, disgusting, fucking scary-ass flying fang-fuckers? I'm kind of okay with that.

The other thing is-- is there some kind of law that says that scientists have to ruin everything? Okay, so, you're bored. You're sitting in your high-tech laboratories playing "Zelda" and looking for chicks who dig losers on E-Harmony and you're wondering about what you can write your next $3.2 million dollar grant for, and you come up with this? The Effect of Wind-Turbines on the Bat Population of America?

Come on, guys. Why don't you just shut the fuck up? Focus on the remote possibility of your ability to procreate and leave the rest of us alone.

I don't know-- maybe if Koala bears or puppies were having their organs explode because of wind turbines I would care a little bit more, but bats? You're gonna have to try a little harder than that to take my attention away from the tank-tops and bobbing up and down ponytails of the world.

The Morning Off

Some of you rabid, trembling addicts might notice that my morning blog is a tad later in coming than usual.

That's because, for services above and beyond the call of duty this weekend, I was graciously offered the morning off by my employer, and I graciously accepted.

But I didn't spend it stinking around in bed, though-- oh, no.

No.

Though it's only 9:10am, I've been a productive little bastard already.

I ate breakfast with and saw off dear Mrs. Apron at 7:15. Walked dog. Picked up shit. ("Oh, thank you for doing that! You know, my husband would be the one who would step right in that if you didn't pick up! Welcome to the neighborhood!")

Drove to the supermarket.

Strange people are at the supermarket at 7:35am on a Monday morning. I saw at least three nurses, or, at least, women in scrubs. You never know who's a nurse anymore. Everybody wears scrubs. I don't know why-- I guess because it's easy and people like to look like nurses. It's interesting that, fifty years ago, when nurses wore white dresses and little cloth hats with red crosses on them that janitors and housekeepers didn't emulate that particular style. I guess that's a good thing. People think scrubs are comfortable, but I don't. I have one pair of scrubs that I wear to sleep in, and the seam cuts right inside my asshole. Maybe some people like that.

There was also a man buying nine 2 liter bottles of Nestea. Nothing else. I was suspicious of his motives.

I brought two cloth bags with me to the market. The environment and I have a tenuous relationship. She gets along a lot better with my wife. I have a hard time acclimating myself to doing right by the environment, because there's rather a lot to remember. I'm more often than not inclined to angrily and mechanically throw junk mailers in the garbage can without thinking to recycle them. I frequently cannot be bothered to turn over a goddamn Chinese takeout container and squint and hold it under the light to ascertain whether it's a 1 or a 2 inside the fucking triangle. I try. God help me, I do. Many, many times, I try to remind myself to bring cloth bags to the supermarket but, often, I just plain old forget. And the plastic bags they give out (for free!) at the market are so, so useful for dog shit. I can't pick up that in a chic Whole Foods cloth bag.

But today, I remembered. I remembered to take the cloth bags out of the house and put them in the car. I remembered to take them out of the car. I remembered to shove them into the grocery cart.

I just forgot to put the groceries in them.

See, when I get to the checkout line, I'm a maniac. For me, bagging groceries is the equivalent of a NASCAR pit stop. If it's not done in under 8.64 seconds, I'm a failure. First of all, I hate standing there while somebody else bags for me. I feel like those people who bring their cars to the car wash and then get out while some Hispanic guy with four teeth vacuums out the car, puts it into neutral and sends it through for you, while you stand there in your fucking Ray Bans and slicked back hair and madras shorts and point at all the spots he missed while he's thinking about raping your wife.

I especially hate standing there while the blind bagger at ACME bags my groceries. I just can't do it.

So, I bag. And I bag fast. Look at me go! I'm fucking fast! I don't want to inconvenience anybody by being slow or haggling about the price of pork chops or asking if I can go back to see if Bounty X-tra Thirsty is on sale this week. I don't want anybody to stand behind me and roll their eyes or check their watch surreptitiously give me the finger inside their pants pocket. I don't even want to slow up the pervert buying all that iced tea for the cultish orgy he's hosting tonight. So, in my haste to bag faster than you can say "OCD," I totally neglected to use the cloth bags.

Sorry, Mother Nature. I fucked up, yo.

After returning home, I decided that I should attend to home maintenance chores that have been somewhat ignored during the last couple of weeks I have been involved in tech and dress rehearsals for the show I was in this weekend. The hedges that I had meticulously cut a few weeks ago now looked like the Green Giant's afropubes on crack and I was not pleased. So, before the church bells in the distance struck 8:00am, I was out there with the hedge clippers. Although they really only needed a trim, because I am obsessive and anal, I gave them a buzz cut and, Earthlovers, you'll be so proud of me, I even put all the clippings in the lawn recycling refuse bag! Yay, me!

Then, I turned my attention to the weeds. Mrs. Apron and I had done some perfunctory weeding around a month ago, but nothing since then. Well, the thing about weeding is, it's really, really fucking awesome-- especially if you have obsessive compulsive tendencies. If you're a superfreak, weeding is like Pringles-- once you pop, you can't stop! It's so cathartic to hear those roots snap as they yield to your powerful grip.

DIE, MOTHAFUCKAS, DIE! DIE, MOTHAFUCKAS, DIE!

*Sigh.* It's a beautiful thing.

We bought this house in February on a short sale, which means that the bank was in charge of the sale, because the previous owners had ceased paying their mortgage. And their real estate taxes. And their school taxes. And their sewer bill. And, presumably, most other bills. Though I'm not exactly sure, I'd be willing to bet there is a real correlation between the amount of bills a homeowner stops paying to the amount of weeds that grow in his/her yard. Let me tell you, at 8:00am today, this house looked like a fucking jungle. Yes, neighbors were staring at me as I, clad in a dress shirt and slacks, was methodically hunting down and strangling the life out of nefarious looking weeds on a weekday morning, but it had to be done. This is a house where people pay their fucking bills and pull their fucking weeds now.

Now it is.

It's a beautiful thing to have the morning off.