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Lee Pitts: It’s the Pitts 11-26-12

Lee Pitts
Morrow Bay, Calif.

Call me a curmudgeon but I think our lives might possibly be enhanced if we could just get rid of a few things that we don’t really need, but can’t seem to live without. Besides cluttering up our three car garages they clutter up our lives as well. This holiday/shopping season seems like a good time to re-prioritize and to simplify my life so I have compiled a list of the stuff in our modern society that I can easily live without.

This may come as a surprise to some but my life would change very little without state lotteries, hemorrhoid and feminine hygiene advertisements on television, leveraged buyouts, call waiting, drive by shootings, flavored water and modern art.

I consider my library complete without a single book supposedly written by a Kardashian, Survivor, Bachelorette, American Idol or steroid enhanced athlete.



Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit that I do not own a single silk tie, pair of designer jeans or a wrist watch that cost more than some families make in an entire year.

There may be something missing in my life but I’m pretty sure it is not quiche, caviar, arugula, soy burgers, sun dried tomatoes, brie, horsemeat or the Iron Chef.

I find that I can easily live without an earring, or the few hairs I have left on my head tied into a goofy looking ponytail. I don’t need a wife with a tattoo, a hyphenated last name or a pierced eye lid, navel or nostril. I find life a lot simpler without glitz, greed and Glitter Barbie.



Have the following items really made this a better place to live? Gas powered leaf blowers, electric wrenches, Facebook, 25-inch stereo speakers mounted in the back of small pick-ups, offensive tee shirts, television sets with 500 channels but nothing worthy of watching, and rap music?

I don’t need to stay in a $500 dollar a night motel room with carpet on the walls, concierge service and a fern bar in the lobby to sleep well at night. My conscience is clear.

There are some people who I don’t want cluttering up my life either. These would include religious terrorists, doomsday environmentalists, screaming TV stock peddlers and pushers, animal rights whackos, mid-afternoon talk show hosts, PETA members, Madonna, the British Royalty, psychoanalysts, punk kids who shoot their classmates, debutantes, nannies, adulterers, child abusers, militant vegetarians and Lady Gaga. (Although, as a rancher I did like her all meat dress, even though it did seem a bit impractical.)

Couldn’t we all get along without assault rifles, corporate welfare, news fakers, six figure pensions for tyrannical ex-employees of government agencies, air you can see and chemicals you can’t, purple hair, $1,000 a plate dinners, doggie spas, Political Action Committees, blogs, taxpayer subsidized vacations and pushy and domineering bureaucrats no one voted into office?

There may be something missing in my life but I’m pretty sure it is not quiche, caviar, arugula, soy burgers, sun dried tomatoes, brie, horsemeat or the Iron Chef.

Surely the world would not come to an end tomorrow without junk mail, tanning salons, speed trap radar, porno movies, touchy car alarms, Rogaine, the Home Shopping Network, that dude in Nigeria who is always e-mailing you with a get-rich-quick scheme, and cats and dogs with more clothes than millions of children who live in third world countries.

I could live in a world quite comfortably without pushy crowds, abused children, overpaid college football coaches who cheat (it’s just a game, people), drunk drivers, breast cancer and political correctness.

It occurs to me that during this holiday season this materialistic world of ours might be a lot better off if more people would be as concerned about some Make-A-Wish list as they are their own lengthy shopping list. ❖

Lee Pitts

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