Mine, Mine, Mine!

You know the guy I’m talking about. If you have ever driven a car in Miami, you have seen this guy repeatedly. He is swerving in and out of traffic, changing lanes without using his turn signal. On a given day, rather than wait, he will abandon the main arteries, careen through residential neighborhoods, and drive across your front lawn. Ignoring stop signs in suburban enclaves is fine with this guy just so he doesn’t get where he’s going a minute later.

That his getting to work earlier means that someone else gets to work later neither occurs to nor concerns him. He fits right in with the “me, me, me” sensibilities of our time. Don’t call him about volunteering; making a contribution to the community is not on his list. This is a man in a hurry.

If getting to work on time were a single elimination tournament, perhaps this self-centered driving could be overlooked. Many people have forgiven that psychotic, immoral, intimidating, cheating, creepy bully who absconded with all those bike race trophies. In athletics-as I am not the first to remark-somebody wins and somebody loses. In rush hour traffic, everybody could get to work on time IF our insensitive subject gets up ten minutes earlier and waits his turn instead of zipping along in the “right turn only” lane and cutting the line at the last minute.

His agenda, that he and his schedule are important and that you and your commitments are not, is clear.

Where is he going on Saturday morning, driving his Porsche 20 miles over the speed limit even though traffic is light? He is driving his daughter to the bouzouki competition 45 minutes across town because his daughter is applying to “top” colleges. Our Mario Andretti wannabe is firmly convinced that college admissions officers are clawing one another to attract the top bouzouki players.

The following actual facts regarding admissions to colleges make no impression on our guy:

Bouzouki competition victories notwithstanding, his daughter is not likely to be admitted to a “top” school.

Her life will be an unrelenting misery if she were.

Only a few years ago our guy was lurking in the parking lot “chatting” with teachers, wanting to make sure he understood how the captain of the cheer-leading squad was to be chosen. He just wanted to make sure that his daughter had every chance (read: every advantage) to get that position so that someone else’s daughter would not.

Remember your outrage at hearing that the wife of the Shah of Iran took baths in fresh milk while the people in her country went hungry? Shouldn’t you feel the same disdain for this guy, sucking up our shared resources?

Shouldn’t we feel sorry for his bouzouki playing cheerleader daughter who knows at every level of her being that her father loves her more for where she goes to college than for who she is?

Will and Ariel Durant tell a story about Napoleon’s mother: Napoleon’s mother watched as hundreds of her son’s soldiers carried box and box along the road toward the castle. Six men were required to carry each box because each box was filled with 20,000 gold coins. On each coin was stamped the image of her son, the ruler of the majority of the known world. As the boxes were stacked in room after room in the castle basement, as one of the greatest fortunes in history was amassed, Napoleon’s mother is reputed to have said, “It’s not enough.”

Ten generations later, I get the feeling that Napoleon’s mother is insisting that her daughter win the cheer-leading and bouzouki competitions and go to a “top college” I get the feeling that Napoleon’s mother would also have been willing to leave skid marks as she sped across your front lawn.