Gathering Walks

The difference between warm weather walks and winters walks, well, besides about 60 degrees of warmth and the absence of snow and ice, is that very absence of snow and ice reveals a great deal more, both of the planet and of what people have left behind, aka garbage. Not to be so cliche as to say one man's garbage...because, as yet, it's still just garbage. It's only been collected and put in my house instead of being left on the street. What garbage? Why still garbage? I can start with the 'why still' - because I have great plans for it to become something. Found art, upcycled crafts, and so forth.

Today's haul began with an empty cigarette box. I've found this pattern for decorating cigarette boxes. Of all the kinds of designs and upcylcing ideas I've seen, this one remains my favorite. I mean, there's really only so much you can do to a cigarette box, right? And the whole point in my collecting them is because I am drawn to their design as a box. They are simple yet sturdy, sleek and easy to pocket. I also appreciate a good shoe box, tea box, kleenex box. Pretty much just utility boxes in general that are stock and sturdy. They seem too good a design to waste, which is precisely what people do - just toss these to the curb when the last cigarette is drawn. Now, don't even get me started on why it is smokers believe the whole of the planet to be not only their ashtray, but also their wastebasket. Suffice to say, I'm doing my part to right their assholeness by picking up some of these boxes. Soft packs, no, but I will pick them up to throw them away, and if I pick up a hard pack and realize the box is ruined, I don't just catch and release it back to the sidewalk, I do take responsibility in the 'you touch it, you own it' garbage rule and throw it away.

There's another reason I was first drawn to picking up cigarette boxes. In college, a couple friends of my sister's stopped by my apartment one night on their way to the bar. Laurie and Matt. Laurie asked if she could borrow some money - not much, since at that time, and in a college town, it didn't take much to make a night of it that you would regret the next day - ten bucks. I was a bartender, so they knew I'd have a ready stash of tip money. Ten bucks was easy to come by, so it was no big deal. I knew handing her the money I'd never see it again, despite her promises to pay me back (either they'd already started drinking or'd had something to smoke). Matt blurted out that she'd had the money, but she'd thrown it away, her ten dollar bill tucked inside her cigarette pack for safe keeping, but on the walk over, she'd smoke her last stick, crumpled the pack, and tossed it into her convenient world garbage can. They'd gone back to try and find it, so he's story went, but couldn't locate the lucky wad of waste. I half believed the story. To their credit, they did invite me to go out with them, the ten dollar loan obligating them socially to at least ask. I declined, and truth be told, I never did see them again after that. So, my looking at tossed aside cigarette packs is the remainder of what was most likely a lie to bilk money out of me. I didn't need the story. I would have given them the ten bucks even if they'd just said, "We're not good for it and we'll never pay you back." I suppose it would have saved me a lifetime of looking at smokers' garbage.

Today's score was two cigarette boxes and two plastic bottle caps, which I've been picking up ever since seeing the news story on birds who swallow these bits of plastic and then die because they can't digest all the plastic particles in their stomachs. We are a vile creature in what we do to this planet, to other living beings, and ultimately, to ourselves. But we'll never see it until it affects us directly. I hear news stories of people having to survive on eating twigs and completely inedible plants, just to have something in their stomachs; people who go through cattle feces to collect undigested grains that can then be cooked, and gathering grains from the side of the road that would have fallen from farmers trucks. And a movie I recall, not the name of it now, where the kid is so hungry, he cuts out pictures of a turkey dinner with all the fixings and puts it on a plate and eats it as though it were really food. Maybe, someday, those bird stomachs, filled with plastic bottle caps and mini cigarette lighters and k-cups will be our own. I already sense that they are now, so I pick up the plastic. I'm not sure what I'll do with this yet, but I've got a good collection of it going.

I stuck the two bottle caps in one of the cigarette packs, and then en route, there's a catnip plant, so I stopped and plucked some of its leaves and stuck those in the other box to bring home for the boys. Downtown is where I usually find more cig boxes, but not today. Broken bottles seemed to be the theme of last nights reverie. The new blue bottles seem a particular favorite to shatter. I'm not sure what it is, if they have a particular ring to them, so provide some greater satisfaction to drunken fuckwits, or what. At least they are easier to see and thus avoid for me and my canine companion. But, downtown I did collect one Grizzly chewing tobacco tin - another close relative of the smoker is the chewer, who also seems to share in the global waste basket theory. I'm not sure what I'll do with the tins, but they seem worthy of some upcycling. They aren't really all tin anymore - the bottom is plastic and the top is tin, with the Grizzly logo embossed on the top. I've often found just the tops, which I don't quite understand what would have come of the bottoms, but those aren't of particular interest to me without the whole container.

Lastly, a bungee cord. Now who can't use an extra bungee cord around? I've found a couple of those in my walks and am happy to bring them in and hang them for future use. You really just never know. Although, I do have some reservations about picking up an object whose job it is to hold things in place, because, I mean, how is it the bungee became lost in the first place? Did it not do its job correctly? Is it a bad bungee? Considering that gives me pause each time I find one, but still, I take them in, thinking I can make it work right and that for me, having rehomed it, the bungee will perform satisfactorily.

In total, today's haul: two cigarette boxes; two bottle caps; a handful of catnip leaves; a chewing tobacco tin; a bungee cord. Makes it worth getting up in the morning for our walk. Or at least good for telling stories about later.