I was pulling into the grocery store parking lot yesterday, and I happened to notice this dear soul unloading her groceries a few spots away. It was an interesting process, because her cart was full of things in multiple store plastic bags. It looked like several dozen bags. She pulled out her own supply of reusable bags from the back seat, and proceeded to repack the groceries into her reusable ones, presumably to make them easier to carry? Who knows. As those that know me best are aware, shy reticence really isn’t one of my skills. It took every ounce of strength for me not to go over to her and say, “No, no . . . . ” It seemed like a teachable moment, but in this case, I showed uncharacteristic restraint.
We have a wooden privacy fence at the end of our building that is forty years old and nearing the end of its useful life. One of our neighbors, on the other side of the fence, is committed to hastening the process, because she uses it as a birdfeeder, pouring birdseed along the top railing. Thus, the wild turkeys are up there regularly, pulling off chunks of wood and most of the lattice. I suggested to her that perhaps that wasn’t a good idea, and she responded that she “loves to see them up there.” My options are to tell her she’s an idiot and defacing the property, or filling a complaint with association board, neither of which would promote harmonious, neighborly relations, so I’ll wait until the fence, like the Walls of Jericho, comes tumbling down.
We have a trash transfer station for use by members of our community. It has two large dumpsters, one for regular trash and the other for recyclables. Pretty straightforward. How can you mess this up, right? Many do manage it, though. They don’t seem to know what is recyclable and what isn’t, despite the fact that recycling has been around for, what decades? There is even a sign on the one for recycled materials listing what should be put in and what shouldn’t. It’s been explained to them repeatedly that somebody has to pick through the recycling dumpster, removing the inappropriate materials, and that there’s a cost involved in that. It’s like the folks that transplant bittersweet into their gardens because “the berries are so pretty.” Not getting “invasive”. But back to our transfer station, our landscape committee built a composting area, on the assumption that everyone understands how composting works. On a visit a while back to dump some of my trash, I found that somebody, clearly not understanding how “composting” works, left two large plastic bags of lawn refuse on the pile, and neatly stacked behind it were about a dozen plastic plant containers and two plastic window box liners. In an act of civil responsibility, I moved the bags and the containers into the dumpster area where they belonged. I also took a picture of it, and sent it to the chair of the landscape committee with the message, “Clearly much more explanation to be done”. I think I may have mentioned in a previous blog relating to “store returns”, about the lady that was bringing back outdoor plants to a local garden center because what she’d bought there had died. Yes, you remember – she’s the one that went on a three-week cruise and left the plants to their fate while she was away. Three weeks of hot summer neglect will do that. Perhaps if the cruise ship hadn’t fed her for the first four or five days, she’d begin to see how life’s master plan works.
We see incidences where people don’t connect dots all the time. In another “parking lot” story, I was at a medical appointment last week, and business was good because the lot was full. This older man was backing a huge pick-up truck, one of those skyscrapers with two or three steps to get in, into a regular sized space. That accomplished, he tried to get out. And couldn’t, because it was too close to the cars on either side. That, to my mind, is God laughing. Or a similar monster truck I saw the other day, with an “Energy Independence” bumper sticker on the back. Perhaps if you drove a Prius, we wouldn’t be so reliant on OPEC, you fool. The grocery stores have clearly marked “cart pens” scattered around the parking lot where you return the carts after unloading them, and most people seem to grasp their purpose. However, there are those that leave the carts “wherever”. I get particularly annoyed at the folks that leave them in the middle of handicapped parking spaces. If it’s the handicapped people themselves with mobility issues and can’t get to the cart pens, we all get that and sympathize. We may even, in an act of kindness return them. From time to time, though, I’ve seen perfectly healthy-appearing folks just wheeling their carts into theses parking spaces. Some even glance guiltily around to see if anyone’s watching them. I guess some might be thinking these spaces are closer to the store, and thus they’re helping the employees that go out to fetch them. Message to these people – NOT HELPFUL. Of course, there are people that really don’t get the concept of “handicapped” any way. They assume that handicapped parking is a scam, perpetrated by the disabled and physically challenged, despite what those license plates or placards say. Or, they might figure that “my shoulder hurts today, so I qualify”. “Handicapped” for them is a fluid term that could potentially apply on a given day. To them, again, “No, no . . . . . That’s not how it works.
I find that any number of drivers don’t realize that their cars are equipped with directional signals. This isn’t something new, people. Cars have come with them since, when, the 1940’s? I can understand those folks that learned to drive in 1925 and still think they have to stick their hands out of the window. But there aren’t too many of those left, unless they’re antique car collectors. The rest of us, however, just need to move a small lever. How hard is that? Signs like “Left Turn Only” or “No U Turn” don’t seem to apply to some drivers either, because they’ll find themselves in the wrong lane and dart, sans directional, to where they want to be.
While waiting in the car on a recent visit to a specialty food outlet for our friend, Lady Peacock, I noticed something interesting. One door had a large sign saying, “Please use other door”, with an arrowing pointing to the right. It’s was truly amazing how many people came up to that door and, not bothering to read the sign, shook the door handle. Took a step back and looked at the roof, like there might be some divine inspiration there, then went back and again shook the door before actually reading the sign. And the part I really liked is that they would then head toward the right entrance with a head shake or a look of disgust, as if it was somehow the door’s fault. On a funny side note, and speaking of unclear on the concept, Lady P, ever on the lookout to shave a pound here and there, was overheard on the phone recently placing a Starbucks drive-through order: “skimmed milk, extra whipped cream.” When I mocked her shamelessly, as I do from time to time, she explained that calories, in her mind, are constantly balanced and offset by others. The savings from the skimmed mile offset the added ones in whipped cream. Perhaps she could share that theory with the House Ways and Means Committee.
I went out this morning to clear some leaves from the front steps. We’d just had a major storm, and leaves blew in everywhere. I didn’t do much because it was still windy, but the wet leaves on the granite steps make me nervous that someone will slip and fall, and thus, if my luck holds, I will become the defendant. So, I cleared them off, but didn’t bother with the terrace or porch. Later in the day, I had to go the store, and noticed my neighbors down the street out raking up leaves and trying to clean out their gardens. The leaves and plant refuse were blowing merrily and briskly around them, and they were struggling to gather everything up for bagging. Here’s a thought – wait until the wind dies down before raking leaves. In fact, there are a number of things one might not do in a stiff breeze, like scattering loose hay, shaking out a feather duster, or shoveling fluffy snow. It’s like a flight attendant pouring a glass of wine during turbulence, or watching first graders crossing the lunch room with bowls of soup. (I did see that once, and the image still sticks in my mind – the amusement part of the brain, the technical term for which, I believe, is the hilaribellum.)
Finally, this item – torn once again from the news. A police officer has been court ordered to stay off Facebook after he “liked” a post by a victim. My wife has a friend who, similar to this officer, doesn’t seem to understand how social media works. She thinks it’s like email – a one-to-one correspondence. She also is unaware that, in forwarding an email, the recipient can view the entire string of correspondence, not just her last message. So too, the folks – particularly teenagers, who post graphic pictures of themselves, only to find out that their “notoriety” has spread far beyond their intended audience of one, don’t clearly understand how this works. You’re on the internet, people. It goes everywhere and stays there. As a school teacher, I was always amazed by students’ street-smarts combined with complete oblivion of the internet. Like the student that stole school equipment, and then posted it online for sale, where the school’s identifying tags were clearly in view. Of course, students that did bad things could never resist talking about it to someone, and that’s almost always how they got caught. There was the student that called in a bomb threat to the high school from the donut shop down the street, while a police officer happened to be standing in line for his coffee and overheard. Sadly, that’s not made up either– it actually happened back a few years back in my teaching days. Do people not see this coming when they broadcast their acts to everyone they know? Do a few wayward police officers forget that they’re wearing video cameras, recording their actions? Do politicians forget that their speeches are being recorded for posterity? And that what they’ve just made up could come back to bite them on the campaign trail? Yup – not really sure they’re clear on how all this works.
I'm Thinking...No! 