Waste

I hate waste.  It's very depressing to see how much of it is happening at the corporate level.  There's a lot of it occurring in the giant store I work in.  The only material that's recycled regularly there is cardboard.  I take out the trash frequently, and it's clear that some of my coworkers aren't even recycling that.  A couple of people use a certain desk.  Behind that desk are two cans: one for trash and one for paper recycling.  I frequently find paper in the trash can.  These two cans are right next to each other!  The apathy when it comes to recycling and the environment disgusts me.  My coworkers frequently toss their empty soda bottles into the regular trash.  They could return that those bottles for 5 cents each.  Even when you pay people to recycle, many of them won't do it.
At a previous job, a coworker's friend was visiting him at work.  He mentioned that he doesn't care to recycle because, when the environment shits the bed, he will be dead and gone by then.  He obviously thought he was being hilariously funny, and my coworker laughed.  I didn't.  I don't find laziness, apathy, and selfishness humorous.   
Caring about animals and the environment go hand in hand (I think they should,), because that's where wildlife live.  I recycle as much as I can at home, so it angers and frustrates me to know how much waste is occurring elsewhere.  May have mentioned this before, but I have pulled stuff out of the trash (at work) to recycle, despite my OCD telling me not to.  Although I wear work gloves when I handle trash at work.  When I take out the trash, I try to save trash bags.  If one can isn't very full, I will dump it into another.  By contrast, some of (if not all) my coworkers just automatically (and thoughtlessly) take the bags out of the cans and throw them out: even if there had only been a tiny amount of trash in there (one piece of paper, for example).  This sort of mindless waste pisses me off.  So you see how one can reduce waste and save money simultaneously (The store uses less trash bags.). 
The holiday season is a very wasteful one.  Yesterday, I rang up a lot of holiday decoration purchases.  What a waste.  Decorations are a waste of money, time (putting up and taking them down), and materials.  People brought up carts that were full of boxes of Christmas lights and other needless, useless decorations.  Plastic bags were filled with all this unnecessary crap.  So the decorations themselves are a waste, so is the packaging they came in, and the bags they went into.  This wasteful display depressed and angered me.  I have no decorations, because I don't need them: no one does. 
Then there is the most obvious example of holiday waste: the Christmas tree.  Killing, or buying, a tree for Christmas disgusts me.  You're murdering a tree, raping Mother Nature, so you can have a tree in your home for a short period of time.  Then you will unceremoniously throw the tree out (more waste).  You'll waste time getting the tree decorations out, putting them on the tree, taking them off again, and cleaning up the after the tree.  When I walk a certain route, I pass a cliff.  When one looks over the cliff at a certain spot, one can see a Christmas tree, wrapped in plastic, stuck in the trees.  It has been there for quite a while: disgusting.  The world would be a better place without the person who put it there.  So much wasted stuff becomes litter.  I see it everywhere: yet another reason to get away from society.           

Do You NEED a Bag?

Not sure if I've disclosed this before, but, I, most unfortunately, am a cashier, and I am not young.  It pains me to write that.  In fact, I try to avoid saying the word as much as possible.  At work, we have head cashiers.  I call them "HCs."  I don't even like to see people working as cashiers, because it reminds me of how I spend 40 hours a week.  "You are what you do" is bullshit.  I am not, at my core, a cashier.  It is just how I pay the bills.  People, that I don't know, have purchased and read my writing, so, therefore, by definition, I am a professional writer (just not a successful one).
However, even someone as low on the food chain as I am can make a difference.  I don't think I've ever heard one of my coworkers asking a customer if they NEED a bag.  They either bag the item(s) without asking, or they ask, "Do you WANT a bag?"  I specifically ask them if they need a bag, and this gets them thinking, "Do I need a bag?"  Many times, the answer is no.  Compared to my coworkers, and lots of other cashiers, I issue far fewer plastic bags, which, of course, aren't good for the environment.  They are all over the place.  Innocent sea creatures attempt to eat them in the ocean, where there are tons of them.
Frequently, I don't even ask if they need a bag.  I just don't bag their stuff.  Sometimes, this leads to me getting attitude.  An elderly woman was buying some large items: too big to fit into our bags.  There was a box of lightbulbs that would fit into a bag, but she left it in her cart, and I scanned it there.  I didn't bag it.  It turns out her middle-aged son was there too.  He approached her as she was waiting for him near the exit.  He said, "You didn't get a bag for the bulbs?"  He seemed annoyed.  Then he bought something at my register.  Even though I heard this whole "bulb, bag" exchange, I still asked him if he needed a bag.  Some things (like the environment) matter more than pissing off some little shit.  I towered over him, on my anti-fatigue mat, my body language aggressive.  No, he didn't need a bag.  But, as he was walking away, he angrily ripped a bag from the dispenser for his mommy.  What will happen to that bag?  Will it be recycled?  I hope so.  But it's far too possible that it won't be.
I have trained others to do my job, and I have trained them to ask the customers if they need bags.  I heard one of my coworkers say, to a customer, "I put a bag around these just to keep them together."  I looked to see what she was talking about.  It was clearly a waste of a bag.  I wouldn't have used a bag for that.  I wouldn't have even asked the customer if she needed a bag for that.  But the customer was so impressed!  I thought no one in this wicked world cared about me, but someone does!  "Oh, thank you," she said.  So, you see, my coworker took the easy, wasteful way out.  She pleased the customer, but at what cost?  No less than the environment.  She betrayed the environment to please a common hag (a bag for a hag!  If he's still alive, her husband can reuse it by putting it over her face, and maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to have sex with her near carcass!).
Even though I have OCD, I have pulled paper out of the trash (gross) at work, so it could be recycled.  My shitty neighbors opened a box, that was addressed to the shitty tenants that lived in that apartment before them, and put the box outside the front door of the building that we (unfortunately) share.  They left it there for at least a week (They are lazy slobs.).  I considered calling the office about it, then I decided to dispose of it myself, so it could be recycled.  If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.        

Father's Day

Another bullshit holiday.  The only fathers who should be honored are good adoptive fathers.  Good adoptive parents (who only adopt and don't procreate) are heroes.  Biological parents are selfish misery spreaders.
This one is dedicated to all the people who don't have fathers: like me.  I've written it here before, but it's Father's Day here in the states, so cut me some slack.  I'm the result of a teen pregnancy, which led to a shotgun wedding.  My father left when I was 2 years old.  I saw him occasionally over the years, but I haven't seen or heard from him since I was a teen.  He is the typical deadbeat dad.  He doesn't care about me, and my mother had to take him to court at least once to get him to pay child support.  He is, as far as I'm concerned, trash. 
Today, I was watching a movie called Antonia's Line.  There was a character in it that reminded me of me.  He said things like, "The best thing is to never have been born.  The second best thing is to die."  He said other things like that.  Like me, he believed that to live on this planet is to suffer.  If memory serves, this film won the Oscar for best foreign film.  I think it goes to show that people appreciate reality in their entertainment. 
As far as the world we live in is concerned, the other day, a coworker told me that one of our fellow employees shot himself on the way to work.  He killed himself.  I didn't really know him.  I can't picture who he was.  I Googled him: but to no avail.  All I know is that he is free from pain.  Meanwhile, my foot pain is severe, and I must stand fulltime for my job.
So many fathers have been little or nothing more than sperm donors that I think we should abolish this bullshit holiday.  People like me don't need to be reminded that plenty of people have been lucky enough to have decent fathers.  I see it everyday at work: fathers with sons that are older than I was when he stopped going to stores with me (if he ever did).