When Environmental Sustainability Goes Awry

To the two young hippies next to me in the DVD section of the library: I appreciate that you're interested in environmental sustainability. I don't mind seeing your dreadlocks, your piercings, your fair-trade hemp clothing, and your environmental stickers on your bags. And I appreciate that you might think it is saving the planet to not use water to bathe. But I think that's taking things a bit too far. Seriously, rancourous rancidity is not camouflaged by dousing oneself in patchouli (not to mention, some of us are allergic to that odiferous stuff). If you noticed people backing away from you, it was not a political or a moral statement they were making, it was self-protection.