Last night, driving back from the city with two of my girlfriends, I made an offhand remark about how much I was looking forward to spring and warm days, and being able to enjoy a few simple sun-related activities like hanging my laundry outside to dry. While we all agreed there’s nothing quite like sinking your head into sheets and blankets that smell like sunshine and outdoors, one of my friends told me to be careful that the clothesline police don’t come knocking on my door. I thought she was kidding, but later on, she sent me a link to a story on this very topic that ran in the New York Times back in October. Still thinking it had to be a joke, I did an internet search on the topic and came up with far too many stories on the same topic not to take it seriously.
Apparently, clotheslines are the latest target of the environmentally uninformed”those who are more concerned with real estate values and the supposed aesthetics of clothes hanging out to dry than they are with more important things, like, say, climate change. Since when, exactly, did the way something looks become more important than the reality of the way things are? Hanging things out in the sun to dry instead of using an electric appliance to dry them is a positive environmental act. It seems, however, that property managers and the boards of far too many housing complexes have decided that the sight of towels and sheets”and, oh my goodness, bras and panties”can adversely affect property values. I guess these same people are fine with animals being used in lab experiments as long as the products that were tested on them look nice on their bathroom shelves. And I can only assume that it’s likewise okay with them if a cow, chicken, or pig lived a captive, miserable existence, as long as the roast they pick up in the supermarket looks nice on the serving dish. Honestly, it’s hard not to lose faith in the capacity of my fellow humans to think in any sort of globally reasonable, unselfish way.
I wonder what the clothesline protesters”or the Deliberately Obtuse, as I’ve decided to refer to them”will have to say about their property values when climate change turns their manicured lawns and gardens into coastal pools? I suppose as long as they’re filled with pretty fish that look nice to the other residents, it will be just fine.
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