Green, Dirty, Guilty

I'm not sure if I've breathed too deeply the hippie wind blowing in the northwest, but I've got trash and things green on my mind. Like millions of others, Austin and I have been trying to slowly adapt to a "green" lifestyle. We do simple things that I'm sure most people do. We have realized that going green takes time and is a lifestyle adjustment. Some aspects of our lives may never be considered green while we hope others are. But in general I like to think that most people are aware of the need to take care of our earth.


I get a bit discouraged when I go to the mall with my husband and as we are walking in there is a girl throwing the trash out of her car onto the parking lot. Not just like a big gulp cup, although she did throw one of those out. But she had two plastic bags stuffed with trash that she chucked out of her car. She looked at us, started laughing then threw a few more cups and empty containers on the ground. She jumped in the passenger seat and the car started to back out. Austin and I stood there flabbergasted about 10 feet behind her car and considered our options:

1. Pick up her trash for her.
2. Get all authoritative on her, get her license plate and call the cops.
3. Run to the car and ask her to please throw her trash away in a proper place.
4. Leave it be.

Obviously aware of what she had done and aware of Austin and I standing there, she got out. The driver gave her no support cowering in the front seat. First of all I don't like drama and secondly, I really don't like dramatic confrontations. This immediately had the feel of both. Situations like these make me start shaking inside.

She explained to us her reasons and opinions:
- everyone does it
- it is no big deal
- the courteous thing for us to do would have been to ask her to throw it away properly
- there was a guy that got paid to clean up the parking lot every night. It was his job so it didn't matter

We calmly listened to her and tried to validate her feelings while expressing our own concerns:
- it reflects badly on our city
- we need to take care of our environment
- the courteous thing to do is not litter in the first place
- it's against the law
- the guy isn't being paid to pick up trash in the parking lot as if it were a dumping ground



We finally seemed to come to a happy accord that she would pick up her trash.

Yada, yada, yada

Walking back to our car 45 minutes later we found that she had opened up the bags of trash and scattered it everywhere leaving a huge mess for that "guy" that supposedly gets paid for cleaning up after lazy humans. The shaking inside of me resumed.

Having a dramatic confrontation in the parking lot of the local mall over someones trash left me feeling dirty.

As if I didn't have enough trash happenings I randomly got this in the mail:


The address is correct, but the name on it is for Ron Smith. What do you do when you get a gossip magazine? You read it, because even though it's completely ridiculous, it is a guilty pleasure. And before I sent it on its merry way I discovered that:

- Katie and Tom say that they have never been happier, so stop those rumors people!!
- Britney's getting back into shape ya'll
- Jennifer Aniston may or may not have had plastic surgery

Somewhere in the world there is a Ron Smith cursing that he does not know this vital information.