I could feel their gaze. I could see their smirk of incredulity. As I continued my run, I could hear their words, “What’s this cream puff doing running around picking up bits of trash? We pay Asians to do that.”
A minute earlier, there had been two guys standing outside a food shop smoking.
One opened his yogurt and tossed off the small, round tin foil seal. Instinctively, I stopped to pick it up. I removed my glove and handed it to the dropper. It’s hard to ignore an outstretched hand, especially when you don’t understand what the purpose. The man freed one of his hands by putting his package under his arm and accepted the seal. I said nothing.
I admit that such a tiny bit of trash is hardly worth bothering with. But where are you going to draw the line? If we allow a 1-inch diameter bit of tin foil clutter our sidewalk, what about a 2-inch gum wrapper, or a 2” x 3” cash register receipt? The worst bit of trash, a cigarette butt, may be less than 1/2-inch long, but I hate everything it represents.
You might notice that I have added a column for the temperature. At 0 degrees Celsius, the air was exactly at the freezing point of water. With this blog, I am going to do my part, admittedly tiny, to help the US enter the modern world; I will expose my compatriots to the metric system. Will I be successful? I don’t know.
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