Gretchen sat behind her desk and looked sadly at her empty in and out trays. She may face some sort of golden parachute layoff thanks to fascism. Just like the fascists to get rid of people by laying them off, eh what? She looks sadly at her pin up boards: places she has gone, like Cuba; seminars on inter generational gender affection hatred; and raising awareness of the need for safe injection sites within two hundred meters of child care centers. She holds up some reports she has written, all well received by the same people whose reports she has received well. It is a tight circle of mutual admiration in the tax spending matriarchy. Even if she is facing early retirement with a wheelbarrow of money, she is still active for activism; which explains her latest way to make people safe and safer through regulation, snow blower operator safety helmet laws...

Studies are needed to determine the best design for a snow blower operators safety helmet. She has her own study, which she prepared in a scrap book, with pictures printed from the internet or cut out of magazines in the libraries magazine collection. The report starts with a poem she wrote, in lime green crayon, to express her emotions. I can tell the little cottage she drew with the smiley faced sun is really her cottage. I nod and listen. She likes the motorcycle helmet selection at Crappy Tire: the most expensive must be the best. A stop gap, for sure, at least until a new design can be approved by an as yet unfunded Snow Blower Safety Helmet Approval Agency; at which point all the then currently active snow blower safety helmets will no longer be approved and have to be replaced. Stickers and a registration apparatus are needed.
Gretchen thinks she should be on the Snow Blower Safety Helmet Approval Agency board. She has no qualifications, but that is precisely why she should be on it. For gender balance. To strike back at abilityism, the patriarchy, and bias against fat people. Then she talks about the danger of the 360 degree blower that snow blowers have. What if someone sets the snow exhaust to blow right back at their own face? It only takes three minutes for a face to get frost bite in the blast from a snow blower. Someone could lose an eye. That is why the temporary status snow blower safety helmet needs a face guard. Everyone in public should be wearing a hockey mouth protector anyway.
The shop steward stops by to remind Gretchen that it is nap time. She heads out the door of her office without saying much of anything. I am sure we will be hearing more from Gretchen and her activist sisters/brothers/whatever in the future agitating for more spending on stuff, regulations, oversight, and administration that we did not know we needed. You should run out and wear a helmet anyway when running a snow blower. You can get some use out of it before it becomes unacceptable and you have to get an approved one.
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