You know why. It’s far too difficult to carry every little thing that belongs in the trash and get it all the way to the trash can.
You know the feeling when you are staring at a terrible drawing that you just made, you know you should go ahead and crumple it up, but then you will have created a piece of actual trash that you then have to decide about its next step. So exhausting. Sometimes it’s easier to let it be theoretical trash, which is not-quite trash.
I like to imagine what happened to create the litter outside my office. Today’s survey tells a dirty tale. Let’s call our littering subjects Critter and The Babysitter.
Critter waited all day to smoke his last menthol cigarette. As he strolled on the sidewalk, he was distracted by lighter difficulties and dropped the crumpled carton by mistake.
The Babysitter, also multitasking while walking, carefully balanced office cookies on a Styrofoam dinner plate. Trying to avoid biting the plate as she nibbled the last cookie, it slipped from her grasp and blew a few feet away in the wind.
It stuck to Critter. Their eyes locked. All the small animals in the vicinity hushed.
Critter whipped off his hair net and grabbed The Babysitter mumbling passionately. She squeaked with joy. This was better than a stack of office cookies. She reached into her purse and found only an empty box of condoms.
They tumbled to the ground along with their empty packages and trash, determined to make a litter baby right there on the sidewalk.
I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. It was all downhill from there.
Just don’t litter and don’t make litter babies because that’s gross.
Love,
yermom
askyermom 