Why am I in a bad mood? I suppose the final straw was when I showed up for the Buncombe County Commissioners’ workshop with fire chiefs four minutes late. I just can’t haul it on foot like all these other green people I didn’t see walking or biking while I was out. I told myself they must be going at the speed of light, because, as we all know, nobody approves of driving cars in Asheville.

So, yeah, I got there four minutes late and pulled up a chair in the press section, and tried to focus on the conversation. It went something like:

“VAROOOOOOOM!”
“Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!”
“VAROOOOOOOM!”
“Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!”
“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”
“VAROOOOOOOM! MMMMMMMMMMM!”

Over the conversation of construction machinery outside, one could occasionally hear the soft voice of a fire chief addressing the commissioners, with his head turned away from the press row. After 10 or 15 minutes, Joel Burgess from the local daily got up and moved to the table. I wasn’t about to try that, fearing a sudden move by one as unstable as I would get me decked. So, I left. Why take time off work for that?

But I think before that I was at some level set off by the outside agency funding requests at an earlier workshop. Commission Chair David Gantt kept things moving at a very good clip, giving 43 agencies audience within three hours with two breaks. Of course, I found nothing I wanted to support with tax dollars. I was talking yesterday with a former colleague at an educational institution who assured me he and his peers are well compensated. He said it grates him anytime people get rallied to demand higher pay for him with no deference to the supply side, as in the mouths of the hungry children of a single mom working at McDonald’s. Me, too.

And speaking of those single mothers, my overwhelming sense of inadequacy set in when I heard that teens who get pregnant in high school, and addicts graduating from recovery programs are finding entry-level work that pays gobs and oodles over what I make. I know. I need to be taking distance learning courses rather than hitting the sack when I get off work – or is it the other way around?

Most astonishing in all the reports, though, was the recurring request for funding for Community Navigators. We had no need for such critters before government’s appetite for the private sector got so out of control. These are they who build capacity to justify expanding budgets and more tiers on the hierarchy. They say, “Hey, Little Booboo. You’re working too hard. Why not stay at home, suck your thumb, and get into this and that welfare program instead?”