There are pigs driving and walking through our neighborhood. I don’t mean the type that snuffle and grunt, their snouts to the ground, rooting for worms beneath the grass. Though we did have those, too, at one point.
No, I’m using the term in the generic way we do to describe slobs, those people who don’t care about their surroundings and make a mess of things, throwing trash out without thinking about what that does to their surrounding environment. There are a lot of these pigs in the world, far too many.
We live in what would probably be described as a residential, wooded, clean suburban area, a place where you’d presume people care about how things look. Not everyone mows their yards regularly. Grass dies. Weeds shoot up.
Still, our neighbors put their garbage out on time. They keep their houses in decent shape. It appears there’s an ongoing level of caring.
That’s why what has happened recently across the street from our house surprises, distresses and depresses me. Our neighbor is renovating, so he has a big dumpster to collect the junk being ripped out so it can properly be hauled off by the big trash collectors. The huge container has been in their front yard for over a month.
Its appearance seemed to be an invitation to dump. The first example occurred less than a week after the mammoth blue rectangular receptacle was deposited. I was working on the computer, occasionally looking outside on another white hot north Texas summer morning.
A pickup truck drove down the block slowly. The driver paused, flung his fast food bag at the dumpster (not even attempting to make a basket), letting it fall on the burned out yard. I started to get up to go yell at the guy, but he took off before I could react. I sat back down, and thought, WTF?
That was only the beginning. The second dumping I didn’t witness firsthand. The appliance box appeared one morning.
Someone decided the mini-refrigerator cardboard box delivered from Home Depot didn’t need to go in their household recycling or garbage. Instead, our neighbor’s yard would do just fine. It sat out by the curb one morning, just in front of the dumpster, I guess as a signal to others that it was open season on their burned out grass. “Throw it here, throw it here.”
So, people have. Rather than using their own containers, the pigs have decided to toss their slop in someone else’s yard. When you have your own plastic garbage can, what’s the point in bringing it someplace else? It’s just additional effort to prove you’re a pig.
The most recent case, about two weeks ago, blew me away. It was Sunday morning, and this was an older couple. My stereotype is that older people care about their surroundings. I guess that is inaccurate.
These two pigs, who I have to imagine were on their way to church, decided to stop and make their morning deposit. I watched, stunned.
The elderly man pulled over. The elderly woman ever so slowly got out of the passenger side, tied the wrap on her plastic bag (so nice of her to seal it up properly, wasn’t it?) and politely deposited the package in the metal container, then walked delicately back in her high heels. I hope she prayed for her salvation when she got to church.
Is it laziness? Is it opportunistic dumping? Do people just not care? You’d have to take a poll to find out.
Then you’d learn that some people are just pigs. Soooooooooo-weeeeeeee.
No, I’m using the term in the generic way we do to describe slobs, those people who don’t care about their surroundings and make a mess of things, throwing trash out without thinking about what that does to their surrounding environment. There are a lot of these pigs in the world, far too many.
We live in what would probably be described as a residential, wooded, clean suburban area, a place where you’d presume people care about how things look. Not everyone mows their yards regularly. Grass dies. Weeds shoot up.
Still, our neighbors put their garbage out on time. They keep their houses in decent shape. It appears there’s an ongoing level of caring.
That’s why what has happened recently across the street from our house surprises, distresses and depresses me. Our neighbor is renovating, so he has a big dumpster to collect the junk being ripped out so it can properly be hauled off by the big trash collectors. The huge container has been in their front yard for over a month.
Its appearance seemed to be an invitation to dump. The first example occurred less than a week after the mammoth blue rectangular receptacle was deposited. I was working on the computer, occasionally looking outside on another white hot north Texas summer morning.
A pickup truck drove down the block slowly. The driver paused, flung his fast food bag at the dumpster (not even attempting to make a basket), letting it fall on the burned out yard. I started to get up to go yell at the guy, but he took off before I could react. I sat back down, and thought, WTF?
That was only the beginning. The second dumping I didn’t witness firsthand. The appliance box appeared one morning.
Someone decided the mini-refrigerator cardboard box delivered from Home Depot didn’t need to go in their household recycling or garbage. Instead, our neighbor’s yard would do just fine. It sat out by the curb one morning, just in front of the dumpster, I guess as a signal to others that it was open season on their burned out grass. “Throw it here, throw it here.”
So, people have. Rather than using their own containers, the pigs have decided to toss their slop in someone else’s yard. When you have your own plastic garbage can, what’s the point in bringing it someplace else? It’s just additional effort to prove you’re a pig.
The most recent case, about two weeks ago, blew me away. It was Sunday morning, and this was an older couple. My stereotype is that older people care about their surroundings. I guess that is inaccurate.
These two pigs, who I have to imagine were on their way to church, decided to stop and make their morning deposit. I watched, stunned.
The elderly man pulled over. The elderly woman ever so slowly got out of the passenger side, tied the wrap on her plastic bag (so nice of her to seal it up properly, wasn’t it?) and politely deposited the package in the metal container, then walked delicately back in her high heels. I hope she prayed for her salvation when she got to church.
Is it laziness? Is it opportunistic dumping? Do people just not care? You’d have to take a poll to find out.
Then you’d learn that some people are just pigs. Soooooooooo-weeeeeeee.