Citizen on Trash
Citizen on Trash
While living in Miami about 2002, I stopped in a little strip mall to go to Radio Shack and a video store. I parked my car, and saw a young man (early 20’s) open his door and place a YooHoo bottle on the ground. He got up out of the car and walked to the video store. I said to myself, “no way!!” I picked up the bottle and followed him into the store, dramatically holding it in front of me. With the clerk noticing me, I walked straight up to the individual and told him, “This is yours.” Of course he started to deny it. I told him that I am parked right behind you and saw you do this, I told him to look out the store door, and you walked within 2 ft of a trashcan. Either you can take this or I will throw it through your car window. (Of course this is just a little rash – sarcasm implied).
I asked him do you know why the cost of CD’s have gone up? It’s because the storeowner now has to pay his employee to go clean up trash from people like you. The owners’ employee is not adding value to his store while doing this. Additionally the owner incurs the cost of the trashcan he conveniently placed right outside the door. On top of that the trash blows around, now guess what, our taxes go up. Why do the taxes go up; because we now have to pay another city worker to pick up trash? Of course this whole episode is dramatic but the point was made. The man started to say something, I cut him off and just said, “You know you are wrong, just do the right thing.” He shut up, took the trash, put it in the garbage, and left. The clerk told me thank you.
Interesting story, I’ve heard many like them. The difference is how they communicate in writing. I can almost see J.D. Salinger or John Steinbeck scribbling on their bureau by candlelight after a day’s work. Have you considered writing fables, folklore…any kind of fiction? I ask, because I feel you most clearly make your argument by way of story, appealing to our ethos. Call it, your “moral of the story,” if you’d like, it suits you.
I’ve noticed that your ideas are the kind that challenge others in their habits. Often, people miss take that as a personal attack, when really it’s a critique. Authors, writers, poets, and now even film makers have found ways of doing what you do through fiction: Inventing whole worlds and characters apart from ourselves so that they may challenge the meaning of what’s right or wrong, moral or immoral, real or unreal, through storytelling.
Just the other night while watching WALL-E, the Pixar animated film, I came out the theatre feeling as though I should do something to stop my wasteful habits. It’s from storytelling that change happens. Look at the narrative of hope that Barack Obama has inspired others with throughout his campaign. He is now the presumptive nominee, and could very well win the national election with that simple (maybe even vague) story of “change we can believe in.”
I think it’s part of our nature to deny our mistakes. That’s why when people see what happens to someone and somewhere entirely else, they drop their guard—avoiding that initial offense when you, say, confront a man at a store for littering. The power of fiction is in its ethos, which can make fiction seem real, allowing others to recognize their mistakes for what they are without losing face, or dignity.
Did you catch the moral
-Chris