Pick up Someone Else’s Trash
I love collecting trash from the ground. I like to take other people’s garbage from the street and throw it in the trash. And I think you will too.
It’s a bit strange. My wife is not a big fan of this habit. But it’s not so bad! I have Purrell in my bag. (Is it?) I’m not grabbing disgusting, wet and wet trash, but a random random plastic bag, newspaper, or coffee cup. And you know, when I take care of other people’s garbage, I feel good.
The first few times you pick up trash, you probably do it in anger, at a dick who just dropped his trash on the street just because he wanted to, like he can’t see the trash can twenty damn feet away . And yes, a lot of rubbish did end up in there because a lot of people think the world is their toilet. There is a hole in my front porch, and some psychopaths stuff trash in it. They’re terrible, and I think they should go to jail for a bit.
But when you’ve been collecting other people’s garbage long enough, like a tiny volunteer, you start to write stories about it, stories that make you forgive the garbage men. Maybe this plastic bag was disposed of correctly, but the strong wind carried it out of the trash can. Maybe this handle fell out of the window. Maybe someone dropped the Pete bowl because they were jumping from a speeding car. You can’t blame them for forgetting about it in their shock.
And it’s nice, because sometimes it’s true. The trash cans are overflowing. They fall. The weather happens. People make mistakes. You cannot fix it, and you cannot escape from it. Well, you could move to Japan . Or you can pick up the trash.
By collecting trash, you become an amateur garbage collector. Okay. The garbage collectors deserve your respect. Their job is the fifth deadliest in America . Being a police officer is number 14. Garbage collectors are the first responders and should be respected and glorified as such, and they should have a float at every parade, and I’m not kidding.
And you, you can be like them, collecting trash on the street. Or, if that doesn’t work, in your workplace – say, in the Flatiron County office, where some adults can’t put a paper towel in the bin. You can still take a photo and post it to Slack to put them to shame! But then just take for the person. Because wherever the rubbish is, if you don’t take care of it, someone else will have to, for lack of money, all day or all night.
Don’t call other people in your home; so lies the madness. But do it everywhere.
You will have a cleaner environment. You will be more careful with your trash. You, pure virtue, forgive people for all their petty sins. Or you don’t, and you’ll have that smug sense of superiority over all of them, unrestrained rubbish creeping in. That’s not bad either.