My wife informed me that we'd bought a clothesline.
"They won't pay for themselves until someone else owns the house,"
he told me,
"but that's okay - it's the principle that matters."
"With 3 kids and 1 in cloth diapers,"
my wife told me,
"it'll more than pay for itself soon,
so we can put more down on the house's principal
and focus on other financial matters."
When I briefed my friend on how we were also using solar power,
he admitted his solar-panel-o-meter shifted
from showing a surplus
to relying on the grid
whenever he ran the dryer.
"With 2 kids in sports and 1 in Pampers,"
he shrugged,
"it's just too much work to dry all their clothes on a line."
I nodded knowingly.
I'm glad that the people I know
keep me apprised
of so many meanings of
and methods for
"going green,"
though I am reminded
by some of them
of a Rube Goldberg Machine
as I picture the manufacture
and installation of solar panels
to absorb the sun's energy
and convert it to electricity
in order to run a dryer
while the Amish
go direct from sun to clothes.
Perhaps it's us
who are amiss,
and they are
ahead of our time.
Of course, the panels power
more than the dryer,
but will they end up
in the same place
as the Pampers?
And is that better or worse
than the coal burning somewhere
to power my washer?
These debates, pro- and con-,
about renewable energy
leave me feeling
hung out to dry,
particularly when both sides
become more entrenched in their positions than
the engine oil stain that won't come out of my high school drama sweatshirt,
and especially when my clothesline
wasn't accompanied by a government subsidy.
But
as I watch my underwear
wafting in the wind with the cloth diapers,
waving at my neighbors walking by,
I feel my worries,
with the water,
evaporate
into clouds
that I guess
will block the sun for both
the panels
and the clothesline,
as we all get swept along
together
with the Tide.
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