In the Shadow of the Velvet Rope

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"Freeways are civilization's greatest achievement!"

I yelled this aloud, fist shaking in the air, even though there was no one else in the car but the needy sun and me. It was probably an overstatement, but you have to realize that after four hours of battling my fellow man for space on a two-lane highway, the arrival of multi-lane, divided freeway was something close to touching the face of God. Stress drained from my body, the road yielded before me, and I was able to go about my business at my pace, relaxed, in a vacationing bliss. The urge to run someone off the road dissipated entirely.

I read a quote in the paper once that went something like this. "The role of man is to build civilization. The role of woman is to domesticate man so that he doesn't destroy that civilization once it's built."

Now, this is a gross generalization of course, and by definition then, inaccurate, but there's a little bit of truth in it. The truth, I think, is this. That the same characteristics that make us go out and build civilizations and empires are the same characteristics that cause us to turn on one another like wild dogs in a drought, the moment we find ourselves in just a little bit too close quarters.

Ours is a tale of scarce resources.

That the same characteristics that make us go out and build civilizations and empires are the same characteristics that cause us to turn on one another like wild dogs in a drought, the moment we find ourselves in just a little bit too close quarters.

There are many things in our angry little society that seem custom designed to bring out the worst in us. Things that seemed precisely tuned to bring out the smouldering conflicts that brew when our grasping hearts' desires pull us into dispute over the limited space around us. Things like apartments. Particularly those with thin walls. Things like festival seating. Things like fence height restrictions, bouncers, small yards and Boxing Day sales.

Things like nightclubs.

But it's not all wild hyenas ripping each other apart in the streets, is it? No, civilization manages to persevere - so far at least – so we must be doing something right; must be finding some way to keep those carnivorous tendencies in check. It can't all be the work of freeways.

The penal system, of course, is part of it – laws that are enforced get a big piece of the job done, but there are smaller, subtler things also architected into the makeup of our collective society. Things designed to keep us off of each other's throats. And this rainy, cold summer day seems like as good a time as any to think about a few of them. Here are some interesting ones.

Velvet Ropes – Yep, it's a small but effective thing. String up a velvet rope and riot-loads of people will line up in an orderly fashion and wait their turn. Line cutting evaporates and no one has to punch anyone to feel vindicated. You know that your civilization isn't in total disrepair when a velvet rope is all that it takes to maintain order.

Assigned Seating – A little paper stub that says, specifically, which seat is yours, goes miles towards preventing unnecessary bloodshed. Be it airplane seats in the first class cabin, or nosebleeds at a Pigmy Love Circus concert (which you shouldn't be at in the first place, if you have any shred of musical sensibility), a little ticket that reserves a particular seat just for you is often all it takes to avoid life-threatening disputes with the opportunistic or wronged. Of course, ushers in odd-coloured little velvet jackets are sometimes required to make the system work, but those come relatively cheap.

Turn Signals – A good left turn arrow at a busy intersection may not make the world all join hands and sing in perfect harmony, but it does go a long way towards preventing the gratuitous display of offensive digits and the embarrassing physical clashes that sometimes result from them. Plus they help you get home a little faster and the world is a safer place when you're at home reading a book. Face it - you're a hazard.

Tall Hedges – Nothing beats the peace that comes from not having your neighbours staring you in the face every time you set foot in your yard. Of course, not everyone can have a twenty-foot privacy hedge – myself sadly included – but I'll bet that people who own them exchange broken noses with their fellow man less frequently than those of us who don't.

I'd kill for a privacy hedge.

None of these things are particularly impressive or complicated. I have yet to encounter a poem about assigned seating. But in spite of their diminutive roll, it's the little things that make all the difference. It's the little things that do a lot of the work of holding our society together. Of course, police shrieking around in high-performance cars is a big thing, which keeps the greater evils at bay, but it's the little things that allow most of us to happily inhabit a too-crowded world in relative peace.

If no one's written a poem about assigned seating, they ought to.