On Sunday I ventured out to the beloved Davis Theater to see New Moon with a friend. More about that later, because prior to the movie I saw something really weirdly amusing. There's a realtor who handles a lot of properties in my neighborhood. I won't divulge his name, but I usually refer to him as "Hummer Man" because he drives to his real estate appointments in a big, ugly Hummer. And yes, I do judge people who drive Hummers. Add to it that he sports a brown bomber jacket, and he has "midlife crisis" written all over him.
Well, the first thing I noticed was there was a Prius parked on the corner and the hatch was open. Inside the car were all these Hummer Man real estate signs. "No way," I thought. "No freaking way." Right then, who should be crossing the street and coming toward me but Hummer Man himself! And yes, he got in the Prius and drove away. Now that's quite a reversal, don't you think?
I actually felt sort of giddy about Hummer Man changing his eco-trampling ways. The state of the world has had me feeling down a lot lately. I was cautiously hopeful when Obama was elected, but I feel like he's treading too cautiously, there is so much vitriol and opposition to change, and we are in for a long, hard recovery. So many of my friends have lost jobs or are struggling, and it's a very scary environment. So in a weird and small way, seeing Hummer Man in a Prius made me feel a little better about humanity.
Actually, seeing New Moon made me feel better about humanity, too -- because everyone heckled it! It was so, so bad. I'm glad to see that the teen girls who are its target audience don't take it too seriously (or maybe that's just jaded Chicago teens).
