Why I litter...

To commemorate the (rather late) protests on Global Warming, I am posting my 'spoof' entitled 'Why I Litter' written in a fit of pique in 2006.



Why I litter


Way back when, before Styrofoam cups, disposable diapers, and bottled water; back when mankind had a glimmer of hope to save the planet, we were encouraged to conserve, recycle, and respect Mother Nature.


*The term Conservative comes from the word conserve, so we considered ourselves conservatives.
Automobiles were built smaller and smaller because it was common knowledge in 1972 that the world would run out of fossil fuel in 2020, which seemed a long time away. The object of buying a car was to pay it off so eventually your use of it was free. Geodesic domes were built as homes. They were round so no corners could trap heat or air so their efficiency rivaled the igloo, after which they were fashioned. Solar panels became the rage, ceiling fans were reintroduced, and both were but minute parts of the Herculean efforts made to conserve… and thus leave the world a better place than we had found it.


I did my part. I never used wasteful paper products, recycled tattered t-shirts as dust rags, even used cloth diapers on my eight children because besides the landfill issues disposable contained formaldehyde… and it would not be allowed to touch their baby skin. When we added rooms to our home, we recycled windows and doors from abandoned houses and when we built our patio, we dug stone from an abandoned quarry. We raised gardens and chickens to help feed ourselves and to teach a proper work ethic to our children. We bought a Jersey and milked our cow, selling the excess to pay for her feed.


We had one land-line telephone, and one antiquated television which only worked sporadically... the knob had long ago vanished so we turned it on with needle nose pliers. I hung the clothes on the line as much to bring the valuable Vitamin D into the home as save electricity. We added blankets to sleep under when it was cold, and used only a sheet when it was hot. The kitchen and washing machine water ran to the orchard so watering it was automatic. We realized that we needed to carefully conserve to save mankind from the devastation of selfishly using everything. It seemed, well…sinful to use it all leaving nothing for those who come after us.


Further, we knew that plants and herbs hidden in the Rain Forest could provide secrets to cure future plagues and we were grateful they were safe in so vast a place they would endure for eons. China and Russia were still sleeping, barely touched by so-called progress, so they remained pristine. We liked that there were Bedouins, East Indians, Aboriginals,Tribes of the Amazon and others who still maintained the culture of their ancestors and we felt a measure of order was provided by this fact.


The sight of Buddhist monks raking gravel into intricate patterns or Navajo painters dripping colored sand into magically powdered pictures was inspiring. We even enjoyed an antique term called 'down time'. Down time is when nothing is required of you on an afternoon but cloud watching, taking a nap, or skipping stones while fishing…after you've dug the worms yourself.


Somehow in my absence, in the twenty years from 1975 to 1995 when I was a recluse, the world ran amuck. Maybe it began when men no longer held the door open for women, which happened to me in 1983 when I was nine months pregnant. Or maybe when the computer replaced the hand written sales slip and suddenly two to four full sheets of paper were printed for a $3.00 purchase. Or when casinos slowly filled the scope of land once considered holy, enchanted or spiritual. I'm really not quite sure when it began but it overtook mankind and created a global monstrosity of consumption... the very essence of the planet has been literally sucked dry.


The 'new' green technology with all their expensive gadgets that will help save us need not bother… it's really too late now. I am finally irritated beyond belief that I tried as hard as I could, at great personal inconvenience and sacrifice, to be polite to my fellow human beings and everything else that resides with us here on the planet. It seems I am one of only a handful who has done so; in retrospect I feel like a chump for my efforts.


And so I say Fuck It…


I'll toss my trash as I drive, I'll plug in my cell phone, I'll subscribe to cable and have two TV's running at the same time when no one is in the house. I'll Microwave instead of cook, I'll crank the thermostat up or down at will, make three 12 mile (and useless) trips to town for trivia, take down my clothes line, buy imported food, spray pesticides, fertilize my yard with nitrogen regardless of the water supply… and I'll even buy water regardless of the landfill issues surrounding this latest absurd fad.


I will not be a Conservative anymore… it has become a double-think political oxymoron anyway