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Get it on! |
If they curb your kilowatt hours,
generate a little heat of your own!
By CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
FOR THOSE of you on the planet who haven't heard the news, we Californians don't have enough electricity. Big crisis. Lawyers barely have enough light to tote up billable hours. Face lifts in Beverly Hills by the light of a Coleman lamp. Hundreds of blow dryers owned by television anchors lie unused. Elevator music curtailed.
Vows of revenge on those who created this mess, as soon as the media decide who's to blame. Tearing of hair. Much frustration. Exhortations to save, save, save.
There have already been "rolling blackouts," where some faceless utility bureaucrat decides to turn off the electricity in your house for an hour or so.
Oh, sure, they can do that. You're watching "Temptation Island" and wondering if that top is going to slip down any further and blip, the picture disappears. Tough noogies.
We are assured the supply of electricity is going to stay dicey for quite a while yet. The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
What to do, what to do? Well, turning off a light bulb or two isn't going to cut it. Let's take more dramatic steps.
For starters, there are an awful lot of Californians who are not only annoyances, they have been slopping up scarce electricity like they were entitled, or something. Meter maids, infomercial producers, anyone who ever displayed a "Baby on Board" sign, people who say "you people." That sort. Ship 'em out, I say, and lighten the load on the grid.
And how might we do that? Look, we may not have electricity but by God, we have a state budget surplus. Let's rent land and put up tent cities for them in low-cost areas like Mississippi, Arkansas, or Saudi Arabia. Might be some quibbles from the ACLU, but we're in an emergency situation here. Plunk their butts on a couple hundred Amtrak cars and freighters and bon voyage, baby.
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Maybe even some trades. Couple hundred megawatts from Alabama, we ship them Richard Simmons.
Dramatic though that might be, we'd have to do more.
So here's the beauty part.
We save energy by getting it on. The friendliest thing two people can do; salvation through sex, as Elmer Gantry would say.
Face it. We're going to have a lot of candlelit dinners and we all know what they're designed to lead to; so turn off the television, if you have one that's still working; get close to your favorite other person to keep warm, and … zippity-do-dah, you know how one thing leads to another when it's dark.
Upshot: You avoid freezing. You save electricity. Hell, you're being patriotic.
We'd have to keep some clothes on to stay warm, but of course that's not what we say. We say sex while wearing a down jacket is kinkier and more erotic. It's those people who like to leave the light on who are truly perverted.
We also promote doing it under the covers like you see it on R-rated movies when the actresses have "no-boobs" clauses written into their contracts.
Can't miss, I tell you. People as inventive as Californians are about sex will come up with dozens of additional ideas. Advertising agencies will compete pro bono to invent the new state motto. "Eros Ergo Kilowatts!" (Nah. Too literary.) "Cuddle for California"?
Saving electricity through unleashing the ol' libido will sweep the country. People will soon be conserving power when they don't even have to.
New pickup line: "Do you … save kilowatts?"
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It's a soft California night. The young couple lounge under a palm tree by the light of a big new moon. He turns to her. He whispers: "Why don't we go up to the room and do our part to save California?"
Electricity crisis? What electricity crisis? We laugh at an electricity crisis. Ha! We're too busy to notice.
© 2001 by Charles M. McFadden. The illustrations are from the IMSI Master/Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506, USA.
Former reporter McFadden lives in the Oakland Hills and already has experienced one rolling blackout. You can comment on this column or contact Chuck McFadden with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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