I Would Never Bring a Child into a World with So Few Self-Storage Facilities
Plenty of people today think bringing a baby into this world is a bad idea, and I am happy to hear it. I agree with them, but probably for a different reason. While I think issues like climate change, nuclear weapons, and climate-change-resistant robots with nuclear bombs for fists are worth worrying about, everyone is missing the true existential threat: storage lockers. See, even if we do fix the climate issue, nothing will matter if we don’t solve the storage facility crisis.
If you think what I’m saying must be nonsense because this is the first you’ve heard of a storage facility problem, consider your life before the 2008 mortgage crisis. The banks told you there was nothing to worry about, right? Well, they’re doing the same thing now with storage facilities. They want you to think we have enough storage space, but it’s a lie. Last I checked, there are only about 50,000 of those beautiful Brutalist buildings we call self-storage facilities. Compare that to the nearly 90,000 elementary schools in the US. Something is very wrong when the number of schools practically doubles the number of self-storage facilities. Do we value education twice as much as storage? Obviously not. If people’s consumption habits are anything like mine, it’s just not sustainable.
I keep ten storage spaces. Three are full of clothes and furniture. Another three hold items picked up at local swaps. Two contain nothing but animatronic Santa’s. The smallest one is reserved for Styrofoam cups I’ve enjoyed. I figured, if they won’t disintegrate, I might as well store them. The last locker contains a fridge that I forgot to empty before storing it. I consider that locker a loss.
Beyond their functionality, storage facilities are easy on the eyes. I’ve driven by miles and miles of corn husks in Iowa and strawberry fields in California. Honestly, every single one of those fields would look better if you dropped a couple dozen five-story self-storage facilities on top of them. In my America, fields are just spaces that don’t have storage lockers yet.
I consider myself a Big S conServative. That S stands for Storage. I hesitate to encourage a practice like eminent domain, but the Government has two jobs — protect the boarders and storage — and they’ve already dropped the ball on one of them. If a house sits on a plot of land that could be better used as a site for one-hundred storage lockers, that family needs to relocate. Perhaps they could be given a discount on the storage locker where their bedroom used to be.
There are people who will say the answer is not more storage but less consumption. Those are the same nuts that say to me, “Why do you go to the local swap with four items and return with ten?” As I said last time, “This keyboard might work! And if it doesn’t, I can use it as replacement parts for my other broken swap keyboards!” You never know when you’re going to need another extension cord or six more hockey helmets.
One day the children people did have will be old enough and wise enough to ask the inevitable question, “Why didn’t you create more storage lockers before it was too late?” And what will we say? “Sorry, but we kept our land covered with crops.” How pathetic.
If you want to have a baby, that’s your business. Just know that we only have so many storage lockers. And one of them has a fridge full of old haddock.
