So I found a Fleetwood Mac CD while I was walking home from the bus. Maybe whoever it belonged to tried to fit it in their smartphone and realized it wouldn’t play so they threw it out in frustration, or maybe they were fighting off hordes of attackers, although I would have thought Tusk would be a better weapon. It reminded me of the time I found an egg along the same route, which still baffles me, and also generally how much trash I see strewn alongside the road, usually when I’m on my way to or from the bus. A lot of what I see is expected: paper, fast food containers, bottles. My pottery instructor uses blue glass in some of her works so whenever I see a blue bottle I pick it up and I realize that probably looks weird to people driving by to see a guy walking along carrying a big vodka bottle, but I try to make it look less weird by carrying a big bottle of orange juice in the other hand. Sometimes I find unusual things, like the time I found a nice dress jacket, maybe worn by someone whose job interview went badly, or odd little containers or toys, that I think I might take home and turn into an art project, and also just to a little bit of the trash off the street. It’s surprising that an average of four large cargo containers are lost at sea every day but less surprising that I found one while walking home and I can’t tell you how hard it was to pick that up and carry it home, but that’s another story. I think you can understand that the lesson here is that you can pick your friends and you can pick up trash but if you’re picking up your friend’s trash a guitar player should always have a pick.
When I had a yard with a lot of road frontage, I used to go pick it all up a couple times a month. It was always beer cans (those teenagers threw out a lot of 3/4 full beers), and Doritos and Dr. Pepper trash. It made me wonder if it was the same Doritos and Dr. Pepper-loving people habitually littering, or if Doritos and Dr Pepper-loving people were most apt to litter. And combs. I totally never figured that out. I found a lot of discarded combs. But never a CD.
That’s kind of odd that teenagers would throw away 3/4 full beers. When I was a teen I didn’t like beer but if I’d paid for one then by golly I’d be sure to get my money’s worth and drink the whole thing. That’s why some friends and I bought wine coolers. None of us could stand the taste of beer and we didn’t realize that in spite of being an alcoholic beverage it’s actually physically impossible to get drunk on wine coolers.
Combs are even weirder. They’re not expensive so I can understand being okay with throwing them away, but still I’d think if you had a comb you’d want to hang onto it, especially if you’re driving around in a car with the windows down.
The folks in my neighborhood occasionally stuff their trash into crevices in the stone retaining wall in front of our house. When the kids used our front steps as a bus stop, I used to find all kinds of fun things. I miss it.
It’s amazing what kids throw away, isn’t it? Or rather just lose. Stuffing trash into the stone retaining wall seems kind of weird, though. I take it they don’t think they were helping to preserve it by doing that.
So much garbage in downtown Toronto, even with trash and recycling bins on every corner. You know what I see a lot of on the ground that’s just so strange? Those things you use to hold your dental floss while you floss your teeth. I see them everywhere. Why are people flossing their teeth in public and then throwing them on the ground?
That is really weird, but I guess most Torontonians have healthy gums, so that’s one problem solved. Between those tooth-flossing things and having a bunch of people going around with bleeding gums, though, I have a hard time deciding which one is really preferable.
I pick you every time, Chris.
I’m glad to be picked because you can pick a friend and you can pick a blog post but a guitarist would be lost without a pick.
Can you check that container and see if the laptop I ordered that never showed up is in there? Thanks.
How long ago did you order that laptop? This is a true story from more than twenty years ago: a guy I know ordered a small modem for his desktop. It arrived in an unusually large box and he found they’d included a new laptop, apparently by mistake. He felt guilty and returned it, though.
That’s crazy. It was only ten years ago for me, so unless the delivery driver showed up in a time traveling DeLorean it probably wasn’t mine.
I am always perflexed by the lone shoe lying by the side of the road.
That’s hilarious that you would say that because I just noticed a lone shoe by the side of the road. And it wasn’t just any shoe. It was a bright green Croc. I would love to know how that got there.