Apr 20, 2007

A Golden State of mind

By Malcolm Fleschner / Humor Columnist

I don't think of myself as a bad person, but when I heard about this year's April storm that dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of New England, I couldn't resist putting in a call to my sister back east. Wandering into our sun-drenched Palo Alto backyard, I dialed her up to say, "Greetings from sunny California!" and innocently inquire, "So, how are things in Boston?"

Then I plopped down in a lounge chair and listened as she described her laborious efforts to dig her car out of the driveway before the city snowplow came by and barricaded her back in, all the while fruitlessly shouting at her two preschool-aged boys to stop playing in the patch of yellow snow they'd located nearby.

"Hey, good luck with that, and thanks for reminding me why I moved to California," I said, by way of sympathy.

"Anytime," she said, adding, "Well, at least I don't have to worry about earthquakes!"

Earthquakes are, of course, the one natural disaster most typically associated with California, and they inspire the greatest amount of irrational fear in folks from other parts of the country. If you asked the average American what the most common cause of death in California is, "earthquakes" would probably come in a close second, most likely just behind "botched Botox treatment."

And while earthquakes do represent a legitimate, if infrequent, danger to life and property, they also provide native Californians with a great deal of entertainment. My wife, for example, loves to share with her fellow Californians the story of what happened when we were in college in Southern California and a minor earthquake struck the campus dining hall in the middle of breakfast. Sensing the tremor, she and her fellow earthquake response-trained Californians calmly picked up their beverages and walked over toward the nearest open doorways, not even missing a beat in the conversation.

By contrast, the students from out of state reacted with about as much composure as the teenage girls in the audience of the Ed Sullivan show catching their first glimpse of the Beatles onstage, except with possibly more fainting. Some dove under the tables, others ran around wildly, flailing their arms, while one student just sat there screaming, "Oh my God, we're all gonna die!"

This was all, no doubt, an overreaction to a mere 5.2 temor but, in my defense, I should note that I was right in the strictly technical sense that all of us are, in fact, going to die.

But, my point is that as much as I do love the beautiful California weather, and not just for the sake of inducing jealousy in my friends and loved ones back east, there is a downside to all this sunshine. It appears that this past winter was unusually dry, even by local standards, and as a result government officials recently revealed that they may be forced to declare a drought and impose limited water use restrictions.

For someone like me from Massachusetts, the idea of living in the middle of a drought is a little tough to comprehend. That's because we're predisposed to view water as one of nature's eternally replenishing resources, like sunlight, or air, or the Kennedys.

Even so, I've always been a firm believer in water conservation. In college I remember once arguing passionately with a fellow dorm resident named Adam Zbar about his wasteful water habits. Before showering every morning, Adam would turn on the shower full blast, and then go over to the sink where he proceeded to shave, brush his teeth, floss and otherwise go through a set of pre-shower rituals more involved and time consuming than your average British coronation ceremony.

I objected to such wastefulness, suggesting to him that since water was a shared resource, we should all do our part to conserve. He disagreed, arguing, "Hey, it's my water. I paid for it and I should be able to do whatever I want to with it."

Realizing that this argument wasn't going to have a happy resolution, particularly as long as Adam was holding a razor, I decided to bide my time until cooler heads prevailed. By which I mean I waited until Adam finally did step into the shower, at which point I flushed all the bathroom's toilets at once. Hey, it was my water, right?

So while the prospect of a drought does concern me, I feel confident that this will be just another aspect of life in the Golden State that requires getting used to. After all, I've already adjusted to the omnipresent threat of earthquakes, "rivers" that have been entirely paved under with concrete and the fact that we keep electing a governor who can't even pronounce "California" correctly. I'm sure a little water rationing won't be a problem either.

As long as no one tries to take away my Botox, that is.


E-mail Malcolm Fleschner with the unique struggles you face in coping with life in California at Malcolm@CultureShlock.com.