Question: Camden decided a few months ago to stop accepting all resident parcels. Is it not our god-given right to compulsively shop on Amazon? What if other Dallas business/residential properties follow suit? Where would all of the city’s packages go? Local FedEx and UPS locations certainly don’t have the bandwidth for all incoming items to just stop at their local drops. Right? — Chelsey P.
I am continually astonished, confounded, damn near bewildered to encounter once again a prime example of just how lazy you 21st-century folks have become. You have the high privilege of living, working, and playing in the greatest city God ever gave man, and you’d rather just stay inside ordering footwear from Zappos? Instead of taking advantage of the loveliest of evenings while nestled within the bosom of the fraternity of your fellow man, you prefer the life of an agoraphobic?
Why partake of a leisurely meal at Neighborhood Services, or Bolsa, or the Mansion, when you can pull out your Apple-brand NSA monitor and pay a stranger to bring the meal to you? Why stroll the visually pleasurable spaces of NorthPark Center — the greatest mall God ever gave Ray Nasher to give to man — when Amazon can bring unto you nearly any earthly desire, many within a couple of hours if of necessity?
Because you’re a human being, that’s why. Because life isn’t meant to be spent staring at screens and pushing buttons and communicating via (please note that even so much as pondering the following word forces me to swallow the bile that its consideration summons from my gall bladder) “emoji.”
And I suppose it would fall on deaf ears if I were to point out to you that every dollar you send towards Jeff Bezos’ considerable pockets is a dollar that’s not supporting some local shopkeep. You and your loafer friends justify your increasing propensity for Netflix-and-chilling by arguing that there aren’t as many cool places to frequent as there used to be. Even if that weren’t a bald-faced lie — as demonstrated by the magazine with which this web log is affiliated, time and again — your consumer habits aren’t helping the cause. You want cool places to shop? You’ve got to support the cool places in your own neighborhood.
Since it’s reasonable to assume that your short attention span has prevented you from following the thrust of my argument, I’ll translate the above into terms you and your kind might more easily digest:
Clear as mud? Exactly.
Baby Hitler isn’t going to kill himself,
John Neely Bryan is founder of the city of Dallas and an expert on all matters. For advice, to have a dispute adjudicated, or seeking wisdom on any of a myriad of topics, [email protected].
