Thursday! Thursday! My Sister Got Her Post Up Firstday!

I'm running out of rhymey titles. It's hard to begin with but when you have to come up with something new every week, well...

So, anyway, I am going to quick post this bit here so I can technically have a post up but I am going to then actually finish the post and repost it so I will post what I am suppost (hee) to be posting.

That's more posts than a dressage event.

*************

I'm back.

Ok, so as you all know by now, Thursday is where I answer a question from my sister and vice versa.

Let's see what we've got in the line of sisterly questions...

Question: If you were queen for a day, what three laws would you enact (worldwide or local).

Oh, how often have I lolled away the hours dreaming up the answer to this question. I'm talking answers that are years in the making here. And yet, this is going to be hard. Mainly because my Queenly Precepts are pages long and it's going to be hard to pick just three.

Not that I have it actually written out.

Because I wouldn't really do that.

Really.


...


Anyway...


Queenly Precept #1: NO LITTERING! DAMMIT!

And I mean it, too. I HATE HATE HATE litter. Every spring (except for this year, unfortunately) I spend a whole day walking along the road that runs through our property picking up litter. It is so disgusting. I mean come. On. People. The world is not your garbage can. Not your ashtray. Not your compost pile. Not your whatever else people put garbage in.

The other day I heard a bit on public radio about trash and the terrible awful amounts of it that we conspicuously consuming Americans churn out in a day. And, living in the state that is the number one importer of trash (how's that for a claim to fame?) I take umbrage to the carelessness of the natives who have to treat the whole damn place like a landfill.

Umbrage. I don't think I have actually used that word since vocabulary class in school. I don't even know from where I pulled it. Umbrage. It's a good word ... I think I'll keep it.

One of the items mentioned in the broadcast was a challenge someone made to carry around with your bad self all the trash you personally produced in a week. Instead of pitching it in a garbage can, you had to put it in a bag and carry it with you. I think you were allowed to recycle but you had to make the effort to do it at the moment you were done with the item. You couldn't, say, put a glass bottle in your bag and then later, when you "remembered", throw it in a recycling bin. No, if you would originally put it in the garabage, you had to carry it with you for the week.

I think this is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So, that would be a sub-law of the NO LITTERING! DAMMIT! Law. Everyone would have to carry their trash for that day.

The very day after hearing the NPR story, I was at work listening to two of my co-workers lamenting the fact that the office was out of plastic cups again for the water cooler. "I just brought in two packs of 50 cups!" says one. "I don't know how we go through them so fast!" says the other.

People, we don't have a lot of folks working at my office. There is no reason we should be going through plastic cups so fast. As a matter of fact, we shouldn't be going through any plastic cups because we have regular cups. And a kitchen. With a sink. Where they can be washed.

So, I listened to these two ladies go back and forth about the rapid use of the disposable plastic cups, while my inner Jiminy Cricket with the voice of an NPR correspondant whispered in my ear about "all that garbage", and it was all I could do not to scream at them to "Just use the damn cups in the kitchen and wash them!!!!"

Because they just don't get it. They don't even want to get it. Because getting it would involve effort. And, when it comes to office relations, you have to be discriminating about which hill you want to run around and rave like a lunatic on while the enemy rolls their eyes and whispers under their breath "Oh, brother. Here she goes again."


If any of you are experienced at deep sea fishing now would be a good time to try to start reeling me in. Because I will take this topic and break the surface like a glimmering Blue Marlin, dive back under, surface again another 150 feet out, flip flop like a cesium atom and break the line.

Stop. Now. Ok.

So, garbage = bad.

Let it go.


Ok, I just had to scroll back up to see what question I was trying to answer.


Queenly Precept #2: EVERYONE MUST COMPLETE 5 RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS BY THE END OF THE DAY

And it can't be carrying someone else's garbage for them.

And it can't be for someone you know.

Like, if a stranger wanted to come insulate my house, that would be awesome.

Although, they don't have to be such grand acts. You know, like a stranger suddenly coming up to me and giving me flowers. That's Impulse.

Do you remember those commercials? Now it would be "That's Creepy" or "That's a Good Reason to Run Away Fast". As for me, I'd be glad to get the flowers even if they did come from a crazy impulsive stranger. Because I'm not proud.

As long as he was hot.

Ahem.


What's the question again?


Oh. Right.


Queenly Precept #3: NO TELEVISION, TELEPHONE, RADIO OR COMPUTER

Although I have to make the exception for computers that run things. You know, like power plants and hospital stuff.

So here's my thinking on this. One day isn't going to kill anyone. Maybe we could take the time and play a game or visit a neighbor or walk the dog or write a letter or paint a picture. Maybe we could all hold hands and dance in a circle and sing a song about what a good queen I was for the day.

Maybe we would just notice each other and the world around us a little bit more.


Is it any wonder people think I'm a freak?

No, it is not.




This post was brought to you by NaBloPoMo and Perrier.