If you wait long enough, a lot of life’s problems will solve themselves. That has been my experience, at any rate.
As evidence, I offer the cans and bottles in my garage. There are (or were) hundreds of them.
Some once provided a home to 16 ounces of Diet Coke, Mountain Dew or orange soda; others had the happier job of housing inexpensive, domestic beer. And a lucky few were once filled with Guinness, Harp or Oberon (real beer drinkers will recognize those names).
The point is, there were a lot of ‘em out there, cluttering up an already cluttered garage.
That never used to happen. There was a time, not so long ago, when someone else used to return all the empties when she did her weekly grocery shopping. These days I’m on my own.
At first, it didn’t seem like much of an issue. I am capable of returning a few cans. I went to college, even passed a few classes. Surely, I reasoned, returning deposit containers was a task that fell comfortably within the confines of my skill set.
Yet the bottles and cans continued to accumulate. Mrs. You Know Who had a plastic container out there that she filled and returned each week. It filled up in a matter of six or seven days. For the next week or two I continued to carefully stack empties on top of the full container, building a glass and aluminum pyramid to rival anything ever constructed by Pharaoh’s slaves.
Eventually the construct reached critical mass; that point at which no more cans could be added without upsetting the entire structure. I added more cans anyway, with the predictable outcome; the entire thing collapsed, spilling cans and bottles across the garage floor.
Over the following couple weeks, amid the litter of scattered cans, I rebuilt the pyramid until it once again reached the point of collapse. Then it did collapse. I started over again, kicking containers to the side to maintain a narrow passageway from the garage door to the container, now hidden beneath the ever-growing pile of empties.
It wasn’t long before squirrels discovered the landfill-like mound and set up homes there. Homeless persons traveling through town sometimes spent the night sheltered beneath the protective dome of glass and aluminum.
I made up my mind to – this week for sure – return the empties. Then I didn’t. I again made up my mind, and again I didn’t follow through. This process repeated itself week after week.
Then one night I saw a special on “Nightline” in which a representative from the aluminum industry complained of a shortage of recyclable cans. He hinted that the scarcity might be part of a terrorist plot to disrupt the country’s soft drink production and leave Americans too weak from a lack of sugar to fight back when enemy paratroopers began dropping from the sky.
Only I knew the truth.
And then the volleyball players showed up, members of the local high school team. They were collecting cans to raise money for
I could almost hear the “Hallelujah Chorus” playing in their heads when I opened the garage door and six months worth of booty rolled out into the driveway.
The following week, the volleyball team cruised past my house wearing their
I’ve also been saving my old newspapers for recycling if anyone has a semi trailer and a desire to pay off their mortgage.
Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at
No comments:
Post a Comment