Reason #2,647 I don't live in the suburbs

While i'm waiting for a huge flickr upload to complete, I might as well pass the time ranting, since this was the topic of my rant last night during Loblolly's set.

Check this out. Some residents of Brookfield were so enraged about some orange trim on a building doing business, that they stopped the mayor in a grocery store to complain. I'm, dead serious.

I want their life, if the biggest freakin' problem they have is the color of the trimon a grocery store. Jesus.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the angels and saints, deliver me.

From the Journal Sentinel article:
Typical of the complaints was the comment one person made to [Brookfield Mayor Jeff] Speaker, saying, "Oh my God, that is so orange. It looks like a giant pumpkin."

The color looked a "little more muted" in photographs that city officials were shown, Speaker said, but in reality turned out to be a bit brighter.

"Was it a beautiful color?" Speaker asked. "Not to me, personally, but if I did everything in the colors I liked, this would be a pretty bland city."

Some residents stopped him while he was shopping in a grocery store and gave the mayor their opinions about the color, Speaker said.


It looks like a giant pumpkin. Somebody actually said that. No, it doesn't. A pumpkin is orange all over, and it's round. This building is basically cream/white, with orange trim. And it's square. Frankly, I thought the mayor handled it well, by saying color's not his forte. It doesn't seem to be the forte of some Brookfield residents, either.

Although, the article goes on to imply that there are some residents who apparently know a LOT about color, and it lists the actual paint manufacturer's names/numbers of the "old" trim color, and the "new" trim color. Why didn't these picky residents go the full nine yards and specify the exact Pantone registrations for any acceeptable colors on this building? The joke of course is, if you haven't clicked on the link yet, there's not this massive difference between the two. It's just a hair or two down in saturation, (as those of us photoshop users would call it).

On top of that, when I'm calling the mayor, if I'm going to bother the mayor of my city on his downtime while he's in Pick 'n' Save picking up a couple of steaks to throw on the grill, the topic of my conversation is not exactly going to be the color of the trim on a grocery store. No, there's things like the crime rate, the budget, park maintenance, that sort of thing. It always struck me that what color somebody paints their home or business is, really, none of my business. People, wake up. There are more important things than what color the trim is on a grocery store. You used your two minutes of the mayor's ear for this crap?

But then again, I don't live in the 'burbs, where people apparently are terrified of either standing out, or even being amongst people who stand out. Code ORANGE!!! Terror! Somebody's different! Somebody's standing out. AHAHAHAHAHAHHGHGGHGGHGHGGHH!!!!!! Conform! Conform! Comform! I really can't imagine living in one of those subdivisions where you have to have permission to put up a basketball net where it can be seen, or anything like that. What gets me even more is that people who live in these kinds of places tend to vote for Republicans who preach that whole "leave me alone and don't get the government involved" stuff, yet they're perfectly willing to allow the government to tell them how they may decorate their own property. I don't get it.

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