Cancelitory

 I'll bet you probably thought I had my finger on the pulse of this great land of ours even while I was out traveling the highways and byways over the past couple weeks. 

Whoops. I said "byways." This may lead to a blog boycott, since I tend to support such things. Not just rural routes but tourist traps and roadside attractions. I'm also happy to accept any and all readers from lifestyles other than my own. RV drivers? Welcome. Motorcyclists? Minivans? Welcome, welcome. That Datsun 280 Z that zipped past me travelling south just across the Oregon-California border? Yes. Even that person, whatever pronoun they might be using. 

Because I'm here to tell you: Pronouns aren't it. To quote the philosopher Tyler Durden, “You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet." He goes on there to make some disparaging comments about khakis, but I urge you to consider the idea that it is the content of our character that we should be worried about supporting or boycotting. When it comes to celebrity spokesthings, it never occurred to me to stop buying Trix because they were being advertised by a tricky rabbit. Just like I was never worried about buying Michelin tires from what appeared to be a melting blob of soft serve ice cream. Most of these anthropomorphic salesthings were of questionable intent. I'm looking at you, Charlie the Tuna. This was a fish with a death wish, after all, and Starkist didn't want to muck up their brand with the bad chemicals running around Charlie's brain. 

I like George Clooney. I support a great many of the causes he does. But I don't want to buy one of his coffee machines. I don't drink coffee, and even if I did, I'm not sure being a good actor qualifies one to promote the apparatus for preparing caffeinated beverages. I really enjoyed Gwyneth Paltrow in all those Marvel movies where she played the alliterative Pepper Potts. I won't be buying any of her seventy-two dollar scented candles because my life is already far too complicated scent-wise. 

John Rich, of the country music duo Big & Rich, would like us all to stop buying Ben & Jerry's ice cream. This battle of ampersands comes about because the always overtly socially conscious folks at Ben & Jerry's chose this as their holiday greeting: "The United States was founded on stolen Indigenous land. This Fourth of July, let's commit to returning it." Cue the machine gunning destruction of pints of Cherry Garcia. 

I'm thinking we would all benefit from a trip out on the open roads, where the only judgements passed are based on bumper stickers.