Steve Rose, the City Councilman, told an illustrative story at last night’s bizarre-at-times Council meeting.

For several hours, he had been listening, ad nauseum, to borderline frantic complaints from Mr. Kwak’s neighbors. They were convinced the potentially shattering noise from Mr. Kwak’s intended car wash was going to destroy the serene life they had led since moving into Carlson Park.

Mr. Kwak’s proposed car wash — hardly anybody mentioned the convenience store — had grabbed all of them around the waist and flung them around in a tizzy for months — ever since they learned of this evil plot to ground up their sensibilities into odious mincemeat, well done.

Those Were the Days

Had I closed my eyes, I would have given an affidavit that the year was 1850. The protestors were covered wagon pioneers who lived 750 miles from the nearest farmhouse and 800 miles from the closest cow. Cows moo, you know, and that can ruin a guy’s whole month.

Just because these persons live in the middle of the second largest metropolis in America, do not let that interfere with their rapturous rhapsodizing.

Necessarily, I digress.

A Visit Laced with Irony

From my seat, it was obvious Mr. Rose had heard a few exaggerations too many.

Said that the other day he was visiting Mark Langston, the young man with gravitas who has become the poster boy for the cause of the ostensibly threatened neighbors.

The subject, as the Music Man said, was noise, and he was agin’ it.

As Mr. Rose recalled the scene, Mr. Langston walked him out o his car. Not only lo, but behold, Mr. Langston’s neighbor — on a quiet Sunday afternoon yet — was blasting his car radio screechingly loud.

Presumably, none of the neighbors on Motor Avenue is moving to escape the inescapable shrillness of Mr. Poor Taste. Propertty values have not dipped, either, since Mr. Rose’s drop-in.

Who Told Them to Move Here?

Impartial observers need to know that when every complainant moved into his home in Carlson Park, the Motor-Culver corner was arranged as it is today:

A bar, a huge movie studio and a gas station. All three tend to be noisier than nursing homes for those suffering from political Alzheimer’s.

They were not moving into the Northwoods. This is urban life, boys and girls.

A woman neighbor who did not make much sense posed a rhetorical question for the City Council:

How would you like to have a car wash 35 feet from your bedroom?

Here Is a Better Question

No one was fast enough to ask the strongly mistaken woman why she moved into a house and a bedroom 35 feet from a gas station if the least squeak offended her?

I found the tableau surreal.

I do not doubt sincerity of the neighbors.

But one of them should try to save face and sue the chap who laid lousy advice on them.

Here Is Honking at You

I wonder if any of these delicate people files lawsuits against drivers who honk at them — the noise is startling, shrill, sudden and undeniably invasive.

Good thing we have added a Prius to our vehicular family. Now I can drive down Motor Avenue. Maybe I should wait until the car wash is built, then drive through.

Wonder if any of them can detect the difference.