Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Styrofoam and Other Instruments of Blood-Pressure Skyrocketation

     The prompt for this assignment, from Dr. Mackie's Creative Nonfiction course, was to write about something that irritated us.

      There’s no telling why we find certain things intolerable. They just are.  For me, one of these irritating things is the sound that Styrofoam makes when it squeaks against something – worse than nails on a chalkboard, because it happens so much more often. And another thing about Styrofoam – what the heck is it? A bunch of chemicals with unpronounceable names, likely. It takes up a huge amount of space in trash cans, doesn’t ever really decompose by itself, and the only way to safely get rid of it is by burning. And then there are the little snowflakes of residue left behind.
            Styrofoam is convenient, though. And that’s probably why gas stations, fast-food places and restaurants use containers made out of the stuff for drink cups and hauling leftovers. And while there’s nothing that can be done about it(therefore no point to complaining), all those fast-food places look the same. And taste the same. There’s no character to most of them. And so it’s the same thing over and over across America, everyone shops at Dollar General, Wal-Mart or Target because they’re familiar, and eats at the same Burger Kings and Pizza Huts. The little out-of-the-way independent stores that Steinbeck stopped at in his journey are mostly gone. Maybe they were already gone by that time, I don’t know.  But now, for most things, if the franchise has only three or four locations, that’s about as separate from corporate red tape and bureaucracy as it’s going to get. There are exceptions – some weekly newspapers are still hanging on, for example. And more eastern Oklahoma examples can be found in the bank in Westville, a grocery store in Beggs, or the movie theater in Okmulgee, besides other places in other towns. And there will always be a small spot left for individual restaurants – especially drive-ins and barbeque joints. But in general, there’s an overwhelming sameness to the American landscape, which is frustrating.
            The extreme dependence on cars being the primary mode of transportation could be linked to this, perhaps. And yes, they are about the most efficient way to get from Point A to Point B. It’s the lack of any other options that becomes the problem. If an elderly person or someone with visual problems, for example, cannot drive, then they are kind of left to the mercy of others, which can be an uncomfortable place to be, human pride being what it is and not knowing who the neighbors are and all. They feel like a burden, and so keep to themselves, not fulfilling a role in their community.
            Switching back to a more personal irritation, my stress level launches through the roof whenever anything involving money has to be done, outside of bargain-hunting. Financial-aid details, for example. I’m very grateful that it’s been there to take care of most of the costs, but at the same time, there is almost nothing that wrecks my composure quite like a day of working out what documents need to go where, and things like that. Part of this could be because I don’t enjoy working with numbers, or because immediate deadlines don’t allow time to process the steps necessary to complete the task. And I just don’t really understand how money works, taxes and things. Since we didn’t have much growing up, I couldn’t learn by observation about how to think about and interact with money when there is some. That’s not the type of learning that can be picked up from reading, either. I’ll learn it all at some point.
            There are more things which raise my hackles, of course. That’s part of the flaws that make us human. But I’ll wrap this up, because I’m running out of page space here. Besides, it takes a lot of energy to contain the flood of Things That Irritate Wesley, if that subject has to come up, and even more to figure out which topics are safe enough to use in an essay like this. Then there’s exactly how to word each sentence, etc. But that’s why I’m an English major, words and language are what I can work with best. 

No comments:

Post a Comment