Environ-mental

Story Sent in by Lara:

I'm a tree-hugging liberal. I'm proud of it, and I make no secret about it on my profile. Enter Keith. Keith wrote me a message in which he expressed admiration for my philosophy and for the volunteer work I have done. We seemed to have a lot in common, so I wrote back to him and we shared some good laughs.

Ultimately, he asked me out. "I have an idea for an unusual first date, but I think it will appeal to your sensibilities."

"What is it?" I asked him.

"It's a surprise. Bring a trash bag, the bigger the better. I'll bring everything else."

Hmmm… I didn't feel like picking up trash on a first date (there's a time and place for everything), so just to make sure, I asked him, "We're not going trash-picking, are we?"

"No, no. It's a first date, for crying out loud. We'll do lunch first, then get to it."

Assured, and trusting that it would be a good time, I did as he asked and showed up to a public park on the day of our date with a large trash bag. He appeared with latex gloves, a spade, and wore a surgical mask.

"We're picking up shit," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Let's fan out and find some. If you find some, call me over and I'll perform the process."

"The process?"

"Yeah. I'll scoop it into your bag."

"And why are we doing this?"

He gave me a you're-such-an-idiot look and said, "Uh… you know, because feces slips into the water supply and causes disease if it isn't picked up. Let's go!"

"You said that we'd do lunch, first."

He paused and thought it over, then said, "I think we should pick up the feces, first. Makes more sense."

"You know something, you and I picking up feces doesn't make much sense to me at all, regardless of when it's done."

"So let's do it now. Get it out of the way."

"No. Let's just do lunch. Maybe we can go do something else afterward. Not feces-related."

He flared his nostrils at me and said, "You don't get to pick and choose what to clean up. The world is filthy everywhere. There's feces on the lawn in Siberia, just like there is, here."

"Can we just do lunch?"

"Yes. After we pick up what we're here to pick up. Am I crazy, here? We agreed to this."

"You didn't tell me what we were doing. You just said, 'bring a bag.'"

"I'll do it myself if I have to. That's how committed I am."

"Can we please just do lunch?"

"I don't know how you could eat lunch with a clear conscience, but you go right ahead," he said, then stormed off.

I almost called after him, but then I realized that he was nuts. Disappointed that things didn't work out, I took my bag with me as I went to a nearby deli and had lunch. When I was finishing up there, I saw him march past the store (he didn't see me) with a loaded trash bag of his own. Ugh.