This made me chuckle, and I felt like sharing it. I probably shouldn’t laugh. But it kind of shed so much light on the way our society is functioning that I prefer to laugh, rather than to weep.
We’re about 12 people living on this story of the building, and it isn’t seldom, in the evening, to see a couple of trash bags left nearmy neighbours’ doors. I’ve always assumed that they left them there so that they’d see them first thing in the morning upon getting to work or school, and not forget to take them down to the big dumpster in the building’s basement.
Tonight, I’ve cooked fresh fish for dinner, and there was no way I was going to leave the remains of fish skin rot in my tiny flat for a whole night. It’s already enough to have to bear that old smell for hours on end, since things quickly stink in such a small place, and it’s too cold outside to be able to open the windows for long. Therefore, I packed my trash bag and went into the corridor to throw it away. Not in the corridor, that is–directly in the dumpster.
That’s when I met one of my neighbours going out, who asked me why I wasn’t leaving my bag here. Which puzzled me for a second, before I realized. (I’m really not for leaving my trash in the corridor, by the way; I find this dirty, and experience living here has shown several times that said trash tends to stay on the floor for a little over one night or one morning.) So I said “No, why?”–and made a little bet with myself as to the answer.
And the answer was… *drumroll* “Well, if you leave it here and pick it tomorrow when going out, you’ll avoid wasting your energy making an extra trip downstairs.”
Damn right on the nail of the head, I was.
I justs aid something along the lines of “I don’t mind”, and went down to throw my trash away all the same (yeah, as if I wouldn’t). It was really weird. And the neighbour who told me that was of cours the skinny type, not someone with a walking disability, or much weight to carry around, or whatever else that would at least have made logical the fact of’not wasting energy’. (Yes, I know it can be a pain to walk up and down stairs when you’re overweight; when I was at my heaviest, I would find this tiring and unpleasant, although I still would have made the effort of putting my bag in the dumpster. But trust me, that girl wasn’t the least bit heavy.)
It gave me much to ponder afterwards, though, hence my writing here. Has our society grown so lazy that we need to save on trips to the dumpster (a whopping 50 stairs to walk down–or we can simply take the lift, too)? Is this one of those tiny little things that make up the big picture, that of people taking the car to drive to the baker’s 100m from their house, that of trying to park right in front of the supermarket’s door when we anyway know we’ll have a cart to carry our groceries to the car? Is this the kind of mentality everyone is growing into? Or am I just being a freak? Am I just being extra brave, I who am still considering a bike as a means of transportation and not as a torture device in a gym room, and who don’t mind going twice to the grocer’s if I’ve happened to forget to buy something?
Somehow, if even going downstairs to throw our trashbags away is a ‘waste of energy’, I’m not terribly surprised that all that kind of economy is going to our waists.
And yes, that pun was intended. Sue me. I still have to recover from my boggling mind, so I won’t be too worried about it. 
May 31st, 2007 at 16:58
Hi Kery,
Isn’t that funny? I think it’s a holdover idea, like “clean your plate,” that only makes sense in a world where exertion is bad and calories are good.
And I confess I still do it myself–we have stairs in our home, and I’ll often leave things on them to save myself a trip up them until the next time I’m going anyway. Even though the exercise would do me good.
Great blog, btw!
May 31st, 2007 at 17:38
Hehe, in such a world, indeed it would be a good idea. And my body is still stuck in that rut as well. I will confess that I tended to do that as well, leaving things on the stairs to pick them the day after, etc. But I know that every move counts, and I’m too lazy to exercise for two hours every day, so I also try to grab what I can when I can.
And welcome here, by the way!
June 1st, 2007 at 14:24
You know, I used to be like that - I thought I was being efficient or saving time, maybe. Which is reasonable, but it’s a bad mindset to acquire, because I found all sorts of things to be too much trouble, and procrastinated a lot. I wasn’t so much lazy physically as lazy mentally. Trying to become fit has changed a lot of my habits, mental and physical both. I definitely seek out opportunities to be more active now, including parking far away at the shopping center. Did you see on Oprah the woman who tied her trash can to the bumper of her car and towed it down the driveway? THAT is seriously lazy!
June 1st, 2007 at 16:11
I didn’t see that show (I don’t even have a TV, I admit…), but that is kind of extreme. I bet it took her MORE time to properly tie that trash can than to actually go down the driveway and back…