For me, conservation and compulsion are basically the same word.

My father started it, being a biologist, icthyologist, naturalist, and general all-around fatalist. First it was about not wasting water: showers no longer than ten minutes were suggested. And then came the whole bit about saving electricity: turn off every light before you leave a room. And finally and most insanely there was his compulsion about not using the car blinker every time you turned because it might wear out the steering wheel mechanism, which of course, he would have to replace.

I couldn't argue with any of these principles. Each one was sound and perfectly doable. The only problem is that they inspired one compulsion after another to form inside my prepubescent brain. And each one of those compulsions birthed another until now I sometimes force myself to leave a light on, knowing I'll be back in the room in just a few minutes. This is only after roughly calculating whether or not I would waste more energy turning off the light and then turning it back on again rather than just leaving it untouched. And if a ceiling fan is also involved, then I usually just leave the room, fan still a-whirring.

I have recently found myself chiding my husband about tapping the wireless video game controller unnecessarily because he's obviously wasting the battery. And when I return home to find the lights in both the bedroom and study still on as well as the small, oscillating fan we use at night, I have to restrain myself from telling him how much wattage we've wasted.

My bigger fear is that if I'm this compulsive about conservation with my husband, how horrible will I be with my children? Will I turn into my father? Will I cause my children to actually expend mental energy worrying about watts, joules, and gallons of water squandered? Or will I be able to curtail these small obsessions and reform them into gentle life lessons about the value of our natural resources? My guess is, No, I won't be able to. Not by a long shot.

This story originally appeared in 400 Words, a journal of very short nonfiction.

Posted on Dec 12, 2006 at 2:00 PM
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