Maybe I haven't really changed that much

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Maybe I haven't really changed that much Wednesday August 29

While I believe that humans change based on their experiences, I often believe there is this core portion of someone's personality that really never changes, or at least, not all that much. I have four great parents, two of which happened to be directly involved in my birth. Those two share some characteristics that, as I have grown up, have become endearing:

• My Dad: I Don't Care What Your Policy Is As I Am The Customer, Damn It
• My Mom: Take Care Of Your Own Stuff Because The Fairy Isn't Going To Clean Up For You

But I digress. It would be simplifying the human experience to boil down my personality to the net sum of my parents' personality traits.

My parents, however, have both been known to be persistent in their opinions at times. I have received this quality without any disintegration in quality, it seems. I am stubborn. If I am wrong, I will give up -- that's fine. However, the problems of how we define what is right and what is wrong, well, that goes back to my Dad's ability to get Customer Service Representatives to give him whatever it is that he feels is necessary.

It could be generational, but one notable difference between my parents and I is the active interest that I take in making environmentalism an everyday part of my life. I don't say that my parents don't care about the environment -- that is a false conclusion -- but I do imagine that I think about it more than they do.

Recently, outside of our building at work, there have been delivery drivers sitting inside their vans, windows shut, ignition on, sleeping, and it's really been bothering me. There are taxi drivers and individuals doing this as well, but I can't very well tell an individual how to go about living their life. They paid for the gasoline, so I imagine that they will exhaust that gasoline into the atmosphere however they so please. That is, if I am not mistaken, part of owning a car: doing things your way. It's the personal individual freedom that it unlocks.

Delivery drivers, on the other hand, frustrate me. They are wasting their company's money, unnecessarily, and more importantly, raising the temperature of my Earth unnecessarily. Also, in the short term, the heat generated by their cars is contributing to the heat island effect that is Tokyo. When it is ninety-two degrees and I am wearing a full suit in the 2:00pm sunshine, it is an understatement to say that I am unhappy about these individuals' decision to unnecessarily heat up the neighborhood.

So, rather than be Japanese, which I find to be largely passive-agressive, I have decided to start taking a more active approach to these people.

I take a sheet of paper (which I have used the other side of, I am not wasting paper) from my bag and write the following in Japanese: "(We) ask for your cooperation to not idle your vehicle (here)." It's very Japanese, but it gets the point across. Then, I put it under the windshield wiper of the vehicle, such that the driver will need to exit the vehicle to remove it. Making the driver exit the vehicle is key, as they must understand What Ninety Two Degrees Feels Like.

I did this twice yesterday. Today I didn't see anyone there, but I could have missed them.

Simon recommended the Beverly Hills Cop trick: stick a banana in the tailpipe as to stall the vehicle. If the problem continues to escalate, I may be forced to such measures.