Waste Not?

Author: Just Some Schmuck

Does your mind ever go off on a tangent while performing mundane tasks and send you down a rabbit hole of anti-societal norms?

It all started after I poured a full, paper cup of coffee into my larger ceramic mug the other day. Immediately prior, I had dumped in three packets of raw sugar and some French vanilla creamer, then stirred and poured. My mug had the remains of the last top-off still in it, so I was left with about an ounce of coffee in the cup –of which I eagerly gulped down. Mmmmm… so sweet. However, there was still about a dime’s size worth of undissolved raw sugar down there. Being a sugar fiend, I thought, “Well, that shouldn’t be wasted.” And with that assessment, it occurred to me that that should’ve been one of the Ten Commandments! No, not seriously. But, as a humorous musing. Something like: Thou shalt not waste sugar. Or, more broadly put and perhaps more aptly: Thou shalt not waste the Earth’s bounty.

As I’m grabbing a spoon to pull the sugar out while tilting it over my mug, the absurdness of the whole idea made me chuckle. Not the fact that I’m doing this in the first place or even that it should be a biblical commandment, but the level of fanaticism reached by some who claim to be ‘Earth conscious’ or ‘green’. Me? I’m just a fiend for sugar. But I mean really, is anything ever truly wasted in our global ecosystem? A system where everything that’s ever been produced has been extracted from the Earth in some shape, form or fashion? With the exception of some space junk that originated here on Earth and is now floating into infinity, all of that stuff is still right here. Given a long enough timeline, it will all degrade and decompose back into its base elements, becoming One with the Earth once again. That space junk will find its way as well, perhaps becoming vaporized when it floats too close to a star or breaks through either Earth’s or another planet’s atmosphere.

I’m sure most of y’all have heard the old idiom: Waste not, want not. If you haven’t, its meaning is that, if a person never wastes things he or she will always have what is needed. It dates from circa 1500 and I use it here as it relates to modern day recycling. Now, that’s a good policy and, very wise in fact. But I believe it’s slightly full of shit and entirely human-centric, which influences some folks to take it to the extreme. Ever been over at a friend’s house who was an absolute Nazi about recycling and you mistakenly toss some cardboard into the regular trash bin? They had a meltdown, didn’t they? Or even worse, how about those ‘Save The Planet’ freaks? Anyone remember what *George Carlin said on that misguided campaign? “Save the planet? The planet’s fine. It’s the PEOPLE that are FUCKED!” Haha! I agree completely.

He also said, “The Earth is a self-correcting system.”, which is true and brings me closer to my point. Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be consciously aware of your ‘carbon footprint’ and actively try to lessen it. Just, don’t take it to the extreme. I don’t, by any means. However, I do try to separate my trash –sometimes. But if I throw an aluminum can into a regular street trash bin, I won’t worry. It’ll most likely get found by some bum can collector then cashed in at a local recycling facility anyways. But, if at home, it gets sealed up in a trash bag and winds up in the landfill? So be it. It’ll be fine. The Earth knows what to do with it. Besides, I rarely drink from aluminum cans. So, collecting/recycling them for cash is unrealistic.

I eat my meals from a paper plate and devour virtually everything, save for some residue, before I toss it into the trash. But that’s not in the interest of being ‘green’. It’s more as a figurative middle finger to the rats and/or cockroaches that will ultimately find that paper plate. They’re not getting any fatter off of my dime! So… FUCK ‘EM! I also apply that discipline to any food wrappers/containers. Dumping out and eating any crumbs, even sometimes licking the wrapper if it’s something sweet –or stuck on cheese. Also, rinsing any fluid containers with water prior to disposal, so on and so forth.

By the way, paper plates are not by choice and are used for irrelevant reasons. Oh, I have regular/ceramic plates but… Yeah, it’s a whole thing and, like I said, irrelevant. I’m sure me loading up my local landfill unnecessarily with paper plates will piss off some of you greenies. That’s kind of why I mention it. Each trash bag I throw out contains at least 20 paper plates. And if that’s not bad enough, I also trash my dead AAA batteries and send them off to the landfill as well. So, let me have it if you must but there will be no fucks given.

I’ve also thrown away a perfectly good live laying hen. Wait… No, that was my cousin Virgil. That’s right. He was ravenous after a long, hard day of being a redneck and said she wasn’t laying eggs fast enough. So, he tossed her in a dumpster. Boy, was she clucking MAD! Yeah, I know. He ain’t too bright. But as a redneck, he takes top honors!

Hah! Yeah, ALL of that was inspired by a dime size bit of undissolved sugar at the bottom of a paper cup! That’s how my mind works, folks! Overthinker extraordinaire over here.

Thanks for reading.

* – This thread posting is dedicated to one of history’s greatest thinkers and social commentators, George Carlin. I’m sure he approves and is currently “smiling down” upon me right now. George, we miss you man!

Disclaimer: This thread posting may or may not have been a pretext to spout Carlinisms.