On Rubbish

It’s a week past Christmas, but my brain insists on hanging on to the season. The song ‘On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree” replays in my head like a broken record. It’s annoying. Especially because I can’t remember what came next. What was the second present? 

            Brains are a funny thing. And a frustrating thing. Mine possesses a part I like to call “The Critic”. It knows when I mess up. And it’s not afraid to tell me. It’s ten minutes into the morning, the first full day back to work after the holidays, the first line of that song firmly lodged into my memory cells, repeating endlessly. I put on water for the morning coffee, go to the bathroom. And that’s when it starts.

You’d think brushing teeth is an uneventful task. Not in my household. I toss the empty toothpaste tube into the garbage where it joins empty toilet paper rolls, dental floss, old tooth brush, feminine hygiene products. I’ve done it thousands of times and it’s never been a problem.

Today, it is.

“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a soggy partridge in a plastic tree”.

‘The Critic’ hi-jacks the beloved song, perverting and misusing it to highlight garbage. Literally. The fact that the toilet paper is made from 100% recycled material and the tooth paste comes out of a bio-degradable tube doesn’t seem to register.

 The kettle whistles. The Critic, happy with the newly found obsession, doesn’t object to the process of making coffee. The beans are stored in a glass jar and I ground them fresh every morning. But there is the issue of how the beans were transported. You guessed it. In a plastic bag. Which most likely by now is floating in the ocean, killing marine life.

“On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two dead birds …”

I don’t want to take this lightly, but feel powerless right at that moment. What am I supposed to do? Sighing, I sip my coffee, I prepare the meals for the day. The bread, the yogurt, everything is home made. Except the chicken. I neither raised it nor killed it. And the Critic doesn’t waste time to use it against me.

“On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me three drugged hens…”

They’re organic, pay attention. I mouth off because the suggestion is offensive. I pay good money for organic meat and produce. The Critic is silent at that. But I know the reprieve will be temporary. I can hear it thinking.

While I butter the bread and make the salad, I remember that with the new year, new laws take effect. Suddenly, my newly found obsession makes sense. Garbage isn’t just on my mind. The environmentally conscious State of Oregon enacted a ban on single-use, plastic, shopping bags. I’ve always disliked those. They break too easily. I’ve been using reusable bags for years. They’re sturdier and washable. Reducing waste has always been somewhat of a thing for me. The first time I heard the term “reducing your carbon footprint” I rejoiced. I had found a phrase, a life style I connected with.

The morning, and the Critic, remain silent until I pull out of my driveway. The aftermath of the Christmas holiday becomes painfully obvious at that point. Taken down Christmas trees litter the streets, wrapping paper peeks out of every garbage bin. Today is garbage pick-up and it looks like they have their hands full.

“On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me four crying birds …”

Sigh.

My commute is twenty miles, one way. Surprisingly, the Critic hasn’t thrown that at me, yet. It does point out the litter, the plastic bottles, even shredded up tires, along the way. And all I can do is not litter. I feel defensive.

“On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me five old tires …”

But what else is there to do? I haven’t used a plastic bottle in years. Hell, I even go out of my way to make sure to buy food in glass jars whenever possible. I don’t use produce plastic bags. My hygiene products aren’t animal tested and my soap is a bar not a bottle. The Critic is unimpressed, my measures deemed inadequate. Shouldn’t I be getting points for good behavior? Or is this an all-out ‘war on rubbish’? In that case, rules of war apply, I’m certain it’s in the Geneva convention or something. The Critic and I will have to negotiate terms.

Traffic is slowing down, no doubt another fender-bender. The traffic merges into the left lane, whatever happened, happened on the right lane. I pass the incident scene, tears swelling up.

“On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six deer a slain …”

A driver crashed into a deer, the car badly damaged, the animal dead, bleeding on the road.

“Shut up.” I actually scream at my own internal dialogue. It works, though and I spend the rest of the commute in silence. I’m trying hard to forget the poor animal lying there, its life cut brutally short. Tears well up.

I do a quick stop at the grocery store around the corner of the office. At the onset of each work week I buy fresh fruits for the boss and myself. If you have fruit around you won’t go grab the junk. A philosophy that works wonders.

The automated doors open. I gasp. The newly emerging focus of garbage obsession lets me see the grocery store with different eyes. I see the food, the displays. But more pertinent is the packaging. The pretty flowers are wrapped in plastic, the lettuce comes in a plastic bag, tomatoes have their own plastic container.

“On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me seven swans a drowning …”

… in plastic, yeah, I get it, cute. I’m still mad at the Critic for the earlier quip about the poor deer on the road, but I do see its point. Plastic everywhere.

“On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight maids a wilting …”

I hum the song under my breath, feeling like I want to blend into the background instead of standing in the middle of the produce isle, gawking. It only takes a minute to survey the fruits for anything that doesn’t come prepackaged. I have re-usable fruit bags and I’m hell-bent on using them today.

“On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine tangled fish lines …”

I pass the California Mandarins, non-GMO (and yet, seedless), easy peel, because they’re in a webbed, plastic bag, resembling fish net stockings. Annoyed, I grab five pears.

On my way to the check-out I pass the other aisles. Dairy, cereal, baking needs. All the plastic one can handle in a lifetime. Garbage follows me like a bad case of paranoia.

“On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me ten hunks of plastic …”

Not helping.

This early in the morning, there’s only one cash register and the line is already considerable. The express-do-it-yourself checkout is closed – computer problems. The patrons in front of me begin to fume. How dare they have to wait? I wonder if I should share my newly developing obsession with them. Would they be as outraged at the garbage as they are about having to wait five minutes?

“On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me eleven pipers bitching …”

I survey the vast store. It really is all plastic. The aisles with the biodegradable stuff, the nature conscious products, are miniscule compared to the others. How can five lonely aisles match dozens of aisles that have the love of the people and the time-tested advantage of being known products?

“On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve drummers shouting that it’s not only up to me.”

Truth is, a few years ago, there weren’t earth conscious products available. Now, I have the option. We shouted and companies listened. It’s a symbiotic relationship. And I can’t solve the big problems, not by myself. But I can shop consciously each time. Is it enough? Is it timely? I don’t know. I’m waiting for the Critic to chime in, to provide a list of my failings in that department. 

Crickets.