Number of Deliveries: 12
Sales: $439.16
Tips: $77
Hours: 4.28
Total Wage: $25.99 per hour
With all my deliveries done for the night, I was cruising back to the pizzeria in the dark when a cottontail rabbit darted into the road. It realized its mistake, reversed its direction, and thump, my tire went right over the little guy. "Shit," I yelled, and pulled to the side of the road. I can't stand the feeling of hitting an animal in the car, nor do it think it's okay that wild animals die for the convenience of pizza delivery. But I guess we all live our own little hypocrisies.
Most people would probably drive off, but I needed to see whether I had a casualty or an injury on my hands. Trust me, it's not pretty, but I've had to intentionally run over injured animals in the past (who could forget the live rat on the glue trap at the Encinitas store, or the baby opossum slowly dying of cat induced injuries in my apartment complex?). I turned around, and when I approached the body in the road there was still bunny fur floating in the darkness. I parked with my headlights on the rabbit, got out, and walked over to the unmoving lump. I half expected it to reanimate as I approached, especially since no blood was visible, but it lay motionless. I nudged it with my foot, but its rest was of the permanent kind. This same thing happened to me several months ago less than a mile from this exact spot. Damn my luck.
Now I'm no biologist, I'm a vehicular rabbit-slaughterer (remember?), but any casual observer would realize there's an overabundance of rabbits around here. All these fancy spreads and lawns have displaced coyotes and larger predators and become massive, unnatural feeding grounds for rabbits. That's one way wealthy people, who want to live farther and farther away from poor people, affect the environment. (I won't even touch the insanity of building mansions in traditional fire zones––or moving sea bluffs––and expecting tax payers to chip in for protection or losses.)
But another way wealthy people affect the environment is by over consumption. Before the universal garbage cans were introduced, I used to marvel at the number of garbage cans––six, nine, twelve!––lining the streets in front of rich homes. I once argued with a well-respected professor at Fresno State who claimed poor people were worse for the environment because they dumped trash on his family farm. I argued that poor people don't generate nearly as much garbage as the rich, even though they may not have the means (or the education) to dispose of their refuse properly. We ended in a draw.
Maybe a who does more of what chart would help:
Rich vs Poor
Energy consumption. Winner: Rich people
Gasoline consumption. Winner: Rich people
Jet fuel consumption. Winner: Rich people
Refuse generation. Winner: Rich people
Recycling: Winner. Rich people (finally, something to be proud of)
You might say, "But Eric, that's just the price of doing business." I would expect the rich to lead the world in environmental innovation, not consumption.
One more thing, then I'll step off the soap box. What surprises me most around here is the vehicle choices of the rich. We know Hummers get little better gas mileage (H1: 8-10 m.p.g.; H2: 10-13 m.p.g.) than a NASCAR (5 m.p.g), but did you know the highest conspicuous consumption cars––Maserati; Bentley; Aston Martin; Lamborghini––top the list for the least fuel efficient? I could go on and on about how gas consumption affects people's lives in faraway places like Sudan (see Dave Egger's What Is the What) and Iraq (no matter what the rationale for the invasion, it's been said that if their main export was cumquats we probably wouldn't be there), but I would only be incriminating myself and my choice to reenter a car for this job. Before coming back here, I spent 2 1/2 years car-free, relying on my bike and the kindness of friends and family to get around. Returning to driving has felt like a big step backward. And the death of this rabbit (gasho!) just reaffirms that.
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