This is New Mexico. I live in a town when Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy once walked the streets, where Pat Garret used to be sheriff and where Pancho Villa came to buy supplies for his army. Unfortunately, what used to be the Wild West is now the Mild West.
Our local government has decided that the citizens of this sleepy little burg need nannies and caretakers as we are all uneducated boobs. (The latter might be hard to argue with if you look at the state’s ranking in education.) Our city council has passed regulations and ordinances covering just about any activity that anyone might find interesting.
Some of the stupid laws on the books are statewide, such as the one that outlaws betting on camel and ostrich races, the statute against spitting on the floor of the state’s single opera house, and the one that prohibits riding a bicycle in a cemetery. It is okay to play the national anthem or the state anthem in its entirety but playing only half of either song in a public place is punishable by a $500 fine.
It is also a misdemeanor for a woman to change a flat tire or to pump her own gasoline. We have a law that specifically states that it is against the law for idiots to vote, but it is clearly okay for them to run for public office.
Not to be outdone, the city has passed a few stupid laws as well. For reasons that only the city fathers can understand, it is against the law to dance while wearing a sombrero or to walk down Main Street carrying a lunchbox. I guess it could be worse, a town about an hours drive away has an ordinance requiring women to be clean shaven before appearing in public, but doesn't specify exactly what has to be shaved.
Of course, there are more stupid local laws. I’m required to recycle, even though the contents of that blue dumpster are taken to the same dump where the rest of my trash goes, with practically nothing being recycled except the aluminum and other metals that were already being collected before the recycling program started. The cost of this faux program is enormous, but the city claims that being ‘proactive’ will pay off in the long run if we ever succeed in finding someone to purchase all that ‘recycled’ crap.
Recently, the city decided it was in our own best interests if we stopped using plastic grocery bags and that, if we received a paper bag from the store, we must pay the city a dime. Research has shown that such laws do practically nothing to improve the environment, that reusable bags have to be used hundreds of times before you are actually using less plastic, and by that time the reusable bags have become so contaminated with food particles that they are too unsanitary to use. The actual purpose of such rules is to make the city council feel better while it plays with our dimes.
It is only fitting then, that I should occasionally get to play with said employees. I confess: I love messing around with the city employees and I should probably be ashamed of myself for hassling government employees, but I’m not. After all, I, myself, am a retired government employee, and I freely admit that as a generalized group, government employees are about as industrious as stalagmites. Besides, now that I’m retired, the doctor said I should take up a hobby.
A couple of years ago, the city decided to mandate that all homes have their street numbers painted on the curb and violators would receive a ticket from the codes enforcement police. I promptly complied, even though my address was already displayed on both my mailbox and the side of my house. Almost immediately, I had some idiot in a reflective vest ringing my doorbell.
“Your street numbers are wrong.”
“Why?” I asked. “They are four inches tall and black on a white background, just as required.”
“Your curb says M-M-C-X-X-X-V. That’s Roman Numerals! The law says you have to use Latin script.”
“Latin as in Roman?”
“Eh…yes.”
“Roman Numerals are written in Latin script.”
“What if first responders can’t read your address?”
“If they aren’t smart enough to read it, they’re not likely to be much use when they get here.”
As it turned out, I had to have pretty much this same conversation more than once. Over the next week, city employees arrived regularly at my driveway, and held small conferences regarding my street numbers. Photographs were taken. No citation was ever issued. About a year later, the city rebuilt the curb for the entire block with enlarged curb cuts for wheelchairs. They repainted the street numbers for the entire block, including for my house, in what is known as the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. (Yes, that is what it is correctly called.).
This week, I noticed a city crew in a pickup, slowly working up the block doing something to the utility poles. I have no idea what the mission was, but the work took half a day per pole. Long before they got to the pole at the corner of my yard, I had attached a small handwritten sign to it. Knowing the city’s penchant for all things Latin, I even used the appropriate language. As you can see from the photo at right, the little cardboard sign says “Polus Utilitatus”.
Today, they finally arrived at the corner of my yard. After spying the small cardboard notice, another conference was held, then a supervisor in a city car arrived and helped the workers examine the notice. I have no idea what the eventual decision was, but the workers skipped that pole and went on to the next block.
I cannot predict what will eventually happen. As they say down in the Codes Enforcement Department, tempus narrabo. However, while I wait for further developments, does anyone know the Latin for ‘fire hydrant’?
I love your twisted sense of humor. I used to work with federal, state and city bureaucrats back in the 80s and 90s when Texas was tossing out old Democrats and shrinking the ranks of the ossified pompous cubicle rats who ran things for the government. Thanks to those stuffy, self-important tin pot dictators, I became a conservative and a community organizer. To complete our local initiatives successfully, I spent a decade teaching the remaining Democrats how to speak Republican. They didn't like it, but we got things done. What I loved was how the bureaucracy fought us when we tried to cut things back and reduce their numbers. They did not let go of their power easily. Nor did they make anything easier no matter how many of them disappeared from their cubicles as the great Red wave swept over the state. Like you I got a kick out of poking holes in their inflated senses of self-importance whenever I could.
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