In cooking, the “Holy Trinity” consists of onion, bell
peppers, and celery. In Roman
Catholicism it refers to the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. In my world, the trinity refers to stuff that
should be free: air, water, and parking.
Fortunately for business people and the politicians, they
already figured out how to charge for all three.
Air for your car or bicycle tires now come from a pump that
costs a dollar and up. This used to be a
freebie at service stations but, no longer.
Some ‘suit’ realized we all need air now and then so, why not charge for
it?
Cement-mounted pumps awaiting at most service stations and
car washes sit with coin slot agape, ready to swallow up to eight quarters to
extract air from the atmosphere and push it into your tires. You are not really buying air, just the
method to get it where you need it. That
is slick.
Water is another gimmick that has taken on a whole life of
its own. Seventy percent of the Earth’s
surface is covered with water. That
being said, free water used to be available from water bubblers – or fountains
– until another marketing genius thought, “Since people are so thirsty, we can
now charge a buck for a bottle!”
And so they did. Now,
even in some restaurants, a glass of water costs money. Here’s a news flash from www.easternshorefishandgame.com:
Water is free from faucets in your kitchen and bathroom. Your garden hose has some cheap or free
water, too.
We were actually encouraged to buy bottled water years
ago. It seems as though bottled water
was supposed to be better for you than tap water, not containing all those nasty
chemicals that tap water contains.
Fluoride and chlorine were introduced into the water supplies to prevent
cavities and water-borne illnesses, respectively. Now, we have a vehicle – through bottled
water – to circumvent these prophylaxis measures.
Now, we are being discouraged from drinking bottled water
because of all those pesky plastic bottles that are winding up in
landfills. Uh, oh. The law of unintended consequences is in
motion. I have a solution. Canteens filled from your home water tap.
But, parking is the big kick in the pants. State governments require us to have our
vehicles registered, inspected, and equipped with many safety options, all on
our dimes. Many over-populated urban
areas also require owners to pay a local tax for the privilege to “garage” your
vehicle in a specific jurisdiction. The
odd part of all this is that once you have met all these criteria, you are
issued a ‘zone decal’ indicating which zone in which you reside. All is well until you want to park your
vehicle in a zone other than yours. How
great is that?
How about those specialty shops we were supposed to support
– the local stores operated by small business owners? They are neatly placed on old brick sidewalks
on quaint neighborhoods with period façade buildings, but no parking lots. Perhaps the planners thought patrons would
visit these establishments riding up on their palominos or pushing their
aluminum walkers. When parking became a
premium because of potential shoppers, garages were constructed to funnel
vehicles to them to clear the narrow cobblestone streets. But, parking fees needed to be established to
discourage traffic in these picturesque areas.
What?
This is a snapshot of the forward thinkers populating our
municipalities and future businesses.
That’s too bad.
