Garbage In Garage Out

Just as I was sitting here planning to write a blurb about garbage, a commercial came on that stopped me with my fingers over the keyboard.

Yes, never fear, no worries, your problems with your garbage are over. I know, it was scary there for a second, it was touch'n'go. But you're good now. Hefty has the answer. BLACK garbage bags. Yes. I know. It's about time. Here's their spiel from a marketing sheet: "While stainless steel is the bigger trend in appliances, black is a bigger deal in trash cans, said Lisa Smith, marketing manager for Hefty waste bags, primarily because black cans are less expensive than stainless steel or chrome. Consumers also find black bags look better with stainless steel than white ones, she said. Delving deeper, Hefty discovered trash also looks better, or at least less messy, in black bags."

Our trash looks messy. Mmm hmm. Definitely a problem. I know my whole day is just ruined when my garbage is too messy. And when my garbage bag doesn't look good with my $100 designer garbage can... well just shoot me now. I may as well not take up space on the planet if my garbage is too messy or my trash bags look bad. 

Really? Is this what we are now? From their site: "Keep your kitchen garbage out of sight and out of mind!" Some of the other quips are even worse. This is just more of the same problem: don't do anything about ANYTHING, just hide stuff. It's OK if I don't see it. One of their "customer quotes" actually says, "My kids don't see when I throw their art projects away." Really??? Sigh. I almost don't know where to go with that. That's a selling point? I'm farther gone than I originally feared, I guess. 

How about instead of hiding our garbage, we instead do something moderately constructive with our waste? How about we make an attempt to NOT make a lot of mess throw so much away? How about we compost the messy stuff instead of putting Time Capsules of Junk in landfills? Oh I know I know, we don't have TIME. We're too busy working too much and having warped priorities and running off to soccer games and ballet and way too many activities for kids who really just need to have being-a-kid time because we're trying to live our failed existences through them because we feel so unfulfilled with what we've done and therefore have to live vicariously through them so naturally we are way too busy to make sure they have a planet to actually enjoy when their kids are trying to live although it might not matter too much because with all the cancer running rampant in children we'll have much bigger problems by then so sure it's OK well and fine now to go ahead and hide that mess instead of dealing with it because we're pretty much doomed anyway.

Wow. And that was all before my second cup of coffee.