Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Why lazy people shouldn't be environmentally conscious

It's been a busy week. And I've come to realize that blogging is kinda like working out. You really need to stay on schedule. If your schedule is shattered and you stop blogging for a couple of days, it's really hard to get back into the thick of things. But here's what I realized during the time I wasn't blogging. I need to stop being environmentally aware.

See I respect the environment and nature. I will never desecrate an area of wilderness with plastic bottles and used condoms. I won't even spit out my chewing gum onto the road. I always switch off the lights when I'm not in the room in order to conserve electricity. In fact, sometimes I switch them off even while I am in the room, peering through my neighbours' windows. And when I dispose my bodies through the process of interment, I make sure that I retrieve anything that is non bio-degradable from their person including their hair ('cause hair can cause some serious harm to the ecosystem, especially if it's been dyed), mail it to their nearest surviving relatives and then and only then will I lay them to rest in the ground.

But being an environment freak is screwing my lifestyle in many ways. It started when I was single and living in the US alone in an apartment with no furniture. Due to my eco-consciousness, I was averse to disposing the beer bottles I was consuming at a rapid rate directly into the trash. But I had no idea what to do with those bottles either. So I just didn't throw them out. Pretty soon every square inch of my apartment was covered with beer bottles. My apartment had turned into a theme park for alcoholics. A sea of bottles as far as the eye could see with quaint little pathways carved out of the glass that led to places of scenic beauty as well as strategic importance such as the bathroom, the television and the kitchen.

This sad state of affairs continued till I got a visit from a couple of friends from New Jersey and I realized that I had to do something about it. So I started double tiering. Bottles on top of other bottles. Soon the sea of bottles began to grow in a vertical direction as well. The beer meadow turned into a beer forest. It wasn't till I got married, bought furniture and began living a civilized life that I began to dispose of the bottles in a responsible way.

Now, at this stage in my life, with my apartment complex having provided me with the means to recycle my bottles, my newest environmental dilemma is with regard to plastic bags. I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do with the damn things. I hesitate to throw them into the garbage but every time I go to the grocery I come back with five or six more. I know there is some kind of plastic bag return policy in place at all the supermarkets but I am just too lazy to find out.

So I keep those things. There is a room in my apartment that is solely occupied by these plastic bags. Thousands and thousands of them. It's a virtual winter wonderland in there, except instead of snow, it's polythene. In fact, when it snows outside, my wife and I, we go to this room and frolic in the mountains of plastic. We have bagfights, construct bagmen, along with their cute little bag animals. Those animals then eat plastic bags by mistake and die of suffocation when the plastic bags get stuck inside their plastic throats. The bagmen, saddened by the demise of their animals, weep big tears of plastic and get rid of their bodies by stuffing them inside plastic bags and throwing them out into the plastic sea. It's wonderful. And environmentally safe.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't been to the gym since i returned and keep blaming on the weather. Actually it hasn't been bad at all, but i figured i can blame it on the weather as long as i see a patch of snow/ice anywhere outside my fridge !

I also recall I threatened Debo to remove his blog link from my favorites if he didnt update his blog. He updated immediately. I'm not sure if that'll work for u though. Anyways, the bastard hasn't written anything after that.

Now, as far the environmentalist part goes, why don't u try being a 'selective' environmentalist. Like a 'selective' animal lover. I love animals i don't eat, kinda thing ..

mmm bagfight, kinky ..

Anonymous said...

Some chains like Whole Foods give you a 5c/bag discount for bags you bring in. But I am too lazy and not that cheap.

We often use the grocery bags as trash bags for our smaller waste baskets or whenever loads of veggies have been peeled and we need to throw them (the peeled skins not the veggies) out in a hurry before they start smelling. In this way we convert the plastic bags into waste bags, allowing us to throw them in the garbage with a clear conscience.

gawker said...

slime : yes I have given up on gym as well, I keep putting it off every week. I dont see debo's update, how come?

bongo : yeah, i use plastic bags sometimes as trash bags too, but that will only get rid of a finite number. Also, even if you use them as trashbags, they are still non biodegradable no.

Kaustubh said...

Just as the world is not meant for the left handed people (I know!), it is not meant for the environmental freaks! You try to do simple things to be environmentally cautious and you get incredulous looks from people and comments like why be worried, we won't be there after 1000 years.

May be, next time you go groceries, insist on paper bags!

Deepak Shenoy said...

You too huh. I's got a store room half full of plastic bags. My washing machine will soon have a massive plastic cushion around it because I stuff plastic bags next to it, above it, below it...everywhere. Soon I'll have a tiny little plastic washing machine because the juxtaposition must have aroused amorous plastic-iron passion.

Funny thing though. I could sell the plastic bags here, it seems, with the paper and bottles, to my neighbourhood raddiwala, who will pay me for it. Even those plastic thingies in which we get milk. S'posedly the milk company pays to get 'em back.

Maybe you should just ship all your stuff to India. Sell it to the raddi wala here. Not only will you get money, you'll have the honour of seeing your bags used EVERYWHERE in the city.

Bonatellis said...

just too hilarious ..

Primalsoup said...

Very funny! My mom stashes away the plastic bags under the mattresses for some reason. I suppose, that way when the Anti-plastic police come home (there will be that day too), they won't find it!

ichatteralot said...

I have been quite regular with the gym! I hate plastic, the Mumbai floods last year can be entirely blames on plastic clogging the drains of this city, I wish they could ban it and bring in something bio-degradable (should not take 500 years!) and with so much technology around it should not be so tough....

zambezi said...

i am sick and i typed dick instead of sick and i had to correct it as thats how sick i am. I have no stamina and keep falling sick all the time. I need to start going to the gym on a regular basis and also start taking vitamins. I havent been to work on Wednesday and Thursday and managed to drag my arse to work today. Didnt you miss my comments?

Raj said...

I stuff all the small and medium plastic bags into the empty beer bottles and then stuff the bottles into the larger plastic bags. Symbiotic disposal.

Anonymous said...

There was a period where I used to go around the grocery store looking for empty boxes, and then use them like homeless ppl to carry my grocery to the car.
On a side note, i gymed yesterday. Found my motivation. But she's talking about changing her hours in the morning. So, I might give up soon. I wonder what one has to do to be a morning person. (Apart from getting up that is)
On a side note to the side note, get well soon zamboobsie.

1diot said...

Deepak, i object to ur suggestion of getting american plastic waste to india.
i support greenpeace movement...
if u noticed, they just made the french take back their ship that they dumped
..
someone suggested carryng a rugsack..i agree!!

Deepak Shenoy said...

blogmaster, I only meant gawker's plastic bags mah man, not all of America's. Oh and the ship thing? We've been breaking down ships for ages, this one just got attention because it's military.

In any case, I would rather use the thick plastic that American shopping bags have rather than the thin flimsy plastic they dish out at many veggie places and shops here. Those are far more damaging, environmentally.