“Solid stuff, Mary Roach is back, baby!
After my brush with death in Spook, I wasn’t so sure about Mary Roach because that book took a lot of the fun out of the occult and seance bullshitters and so on, but this one puts us back on the path where we belong: hearing about wacky people (and in this case, animals) doing wacky shit to reach a perhaps-stupid goal of dissolving conflicts between people and animals.
I definitely bristled at the assholes in Aspen and similar communities. I know it’s not easy to do things like put your trash in bear-proof containers and LOCK SAID CONTAINERS, but doing so will definitely save a bear’s life.
Look, you want to live somewhere with natural beauty, you might have to do something here and there to help keep it a natural, beautiful place. You might have to spend 30 seconds securing your garbage.
When I get down on people moving to Colorado, it’s because I sometimes feel like people move here, and then they try and “terraform” Colorado to be like wherever it is they came from.
They want to live in the woods, but not live with the hassles of living in the woods, such as locking down their garbage or absolutely clearing the food out of the house if they’re leaving it vacant.
My message to people who want to move to Colorado is this: Okay, cool, but maybe write down a list of the top 5 best things about living here, and then write down the top 5 drawbacks, and ask yourself: if those drawbacks NEVER go away, would I still like living there?
If the answer is Yes, then you’re probably going to be just fine. If the answer is No, then I would suggest not moving here.
So, Aspen-dwellers, if the awesome thing about buying a fancy “cabin” in Aspen is that it’s a cool, rugged, ski-centric experience, that’s great, you’re on the money. If the drawback is that you will have someone telling you what to do at times, like locking your garbage up, because you aren’t from Aspen and have no fucking idea what you’re doing when it comes to interactions with wild animals, if that’s a drawback you can’t live with, PLEASE buy your ski house somewhere else. Please, for the love of god.
Or, hey, I have options for you!
If you want to be Mr. Big Nuts and buy a house worth $10 million in Aspen, great, do that. And as part of that rugged experience, you can manage your own garbage. If you’re not rugged enough to do that, you’re not rugged enough to live in bear country.
OR
If you want to be Mr. Big Nuts and buy a house worth $10 million in Aspen, great, do that, and plan on paying someone a little extra to take out your trash and lock the barrel for you. If you’re not rich enough to afford that, you’re not rich enough to live in bear country.
You can be just the tiniest bit rugged or just the tiniest bit rich and make this work, so come on, fuckers. “