Sunday, April 12, 2015

Detroit style

Several yards ahead of me and my dog, they walked. One of them carried a pizza box and ate the remains of a pizza. Little Caesars (ubiquitously missing the apostrophe). "Detroit Style." I imagined an empty pizza box being tossed as litter. Should I preemptively speak against such a vision? I decided against that. Maybe I'd be wrong, and Pizza Eater would not discard the pizza box in the park on this golden spring day. So I walked on, silent. I passed the couple. Then I reversed direction. Sure enough, the couple, including Pizza Eater, walked toward me, no pizza box in hand. I could not resist. "I'll take care of that pizza box for you," I said, looking straight at Pizza Eater. "Appreciate it," was the reply, as if Pizza Eater expected old men to serve as personal valet on litter patrol, or as if Pizza Eater was politely grateful for this correction of a mere oversight, an "accident." "Yeah, sure," I said, tugging against saying a lot more, vehement, sarcastic, righteous, angry, incredulous, instructive, despairing, dangerous. I walked on. I found the evidence, the discarded Little Caesars box. I picked it up, mumbled angrily, and carried the pizza box up the hill. I tossed it in the trash barrel. (I never opened it to confirm if all the slices had been consumed.)

Notice that I have refrained from describing the litter perps. Are there demographics detailing who litters?

Earth Day? Spare me the pious (pie-ous; get it?) cleanups. What about today?

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