What should you do when your neighbor’s garbage stinks?
She hasn’t taken it out for a month now and I can smell it.
She’s a nice lady. Should I yell at her? Or just take it to the curb myself? Tomorrow is garbage day.
This is the crux of the modern dilemma. We build systems to foster prosperity and some folks just don’t get it.
We have free public schools. Some don’t graduate. Some become homeless and criminals. Didn’t we provide them an opportunity?
We have roads to drive on and good water to drink. The taxes we pay on our gas and the municipal fees support this. But still, some folks don’t buy into the opportunity.
Is this the Elegy for Hillbillies? Read J.D. Vance. But please, don’t pay for it. It’s at the library. A free resource you should relish.
So some don’t. Some don’t dump their garbage. The truck comes by in the morning and all you have to do is roll the stink to the curb. But they don’t.
We could all be hillbillies here.
Hillbillies lived in the hills. They dug their outhouse holes and moved them when the urge called. The folks on the stream below dealt with it. Or died of cholera or typhoid.
But we nowadays are civilized.
Maybe civilized means woke. I don’t know. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit. But I don’t support folks downstream dying when I pollute their water.
I do have to empty my bowels.
And my neighbor should dispose of her garbage. It stinks.
She should take care of it. And she hasn’t.
So what’s a good citizen to do?
Handgun?
Molotov?
Just what is the right response to a negligent citizen these days?
Maybe we vote. Maybe we vote for the guy who will bring down the hammer. Then we don’t need to. He’s the authority. He has the power. Let our elected official be the bad guy.
I’m sorry. I just see that as the coward’s way out.
We need to be holding our fellow citizens to account. Dump your damn garbage.
We need to be our own National Guard. We don’t need troops from neighboring states to police our streets.
Just go talk to the lady.
But I didn’t.
She wasn’t home and I was down there, and it was stinking, so I trundled her garbage to the curb.
As I did this small thing I wondered if I was promoting her irresponsible behavior. Was I fostering her negligence? Us liberals should worry about this more.
And we should feel fine expecting more from those around us.
That doesn’t mean we should be expecting people to think like us. Or act in the way we think people should.
But there is something to say for taking out your garbage. That is a reasonable expectation.
Once, back when I was a doctor and talking to a patient about their pain, they reacted strongly. “It sounds like you are saying this is all my fault!”
I tried to assure them that was not my intent. Pain and stink are here to teach us something. We should learn from them.
Prescribing the narcotic for pain and taking the neighbors garbage out for them is a stretch, I’ll admit.
But it’s really about accepting our own responsibility for our personal situations.
Liberals need to understand this. We have some agency for our conditions.
So I rolled the garbage to the curb. They picked it up like they were supposed to. She came home. The next day I rolled her bin back to its spot.
But she rolled it out this week.
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