Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Litter



On a recent walk I discovered something puzzling. Water bottles full of yellow liquid. After seeing more than a few strewn about in the underbrush I could not resist carefully removing the lid from one of them to discover what the yellow liquid might be. To my highly trained nose the odor proved most similar to that of urine. Now let us all take a journey of discovery shall we. One not for the faint of heart. Now is your opportunity to turn back otherwise let us proceed by presenting the facts of the case and then extrapolate to reach a viable theory as to the cause of this most offensive litter scattered in the underbrush between the railroad tracks and the road.

First let us consider the location.This is an out of the way place in a small industrial zone near a public school next to the railroad tracks.. The kind of place individuals who live lives outside of civil society might use to hide away or pass unnoticed. 



Let's take a closer look at the items themselves. 16oz Water bottles with urine in them and 40oz Heineken cans as well. There are at least six of each of these but most likely many more than the cursory inspection uncovered. Having gathered what was found in a five minute search into a pile we ponder the origin of the evidence. These containers undoubtedly came to be by the road side through the activities of human beings. Do we believe it is the activity of more than one or just a single individual? My vote is that a solitary human has deposited these items in this area over a few months time. Considering this theory let us now begin the process of understanding the mind of a person whose life has resulted in these items by the roadside.


 First and second can we agree that the person is a male consumer of alcohol and that his brand loyalty lies with the alcohol producer identifying itself Heineken. If you have any doubts as to gender I will explain myself as to my conclusion when we examine the next item of evidence but there is another interesting fact to consider when inspecting the cans.These cans are the modern pop tab type and on each of the cans the tab was pried only enough to make the opening partially detach along the seam suggesting that the individual imbibing the beverage is a sipper and further suggesting that the cans were all consumed by a single individual based on the modus operandi of only partially opening each can. If the individual is a sipper this would suggest someone who is savoring the liquid contents of the can which in turn might lead us to believe that the behavior is ritualistic and compulsive. 

I am a believer that humanity has been created with a primary purpose to worship. The focus of that worship is the Creator and when a human rejects the Creator, the worship, which cannot be denied, is instead redirected into an addictive behavior and that behavior is almost always self destructive. 

Operating on this belief as our standard let us continue with this theory assuming that a man with an addiction to alcohol who's behavior has become anti social is living on fringes of society and discarding the objects of his worship in the underbrush between the railroad tracks and the road near a school in this industrial area of town. 

Now to delve more deeply into the motivations resulting in the production of the most puzzling of the objects collected in our evidence. That being the water bottles containing the golden liquid discovered to be urine. This is the most compelling factor in surmising the individual is male. We would have to agree that to make a deposit of urine into the opening of an empty water bottle and not just one but upwards of a dozen would most certainly be the work of an individual with a male liquid waste removal appendage. 

Now as to the reasons behind taking the time and making the effort to deposit the waste liquid into the empty water bottle I make the claim that this also points to the compultion, albeit misguided, to worship that is placed within all of creation by the Creator. It may be that the individual in his reverence for the liquid that is his sole focus in life demands that he collects and preserves it because in his fallen mental state it would be a sin to simply allow it to be spilled on the ground to later evaporate leaving no trace of having ever existed.

 Although these are only theories if true they bring to light the tragic realities of a life enslaved by addiction. A life dedicated to the consumption of alcohol and the subsequent collection and preservation of the byproduct of this endeavor. What must it be like to have this ritual as a life's work in a society that would judge the activity as nothing more than nuisance littering?

May all who have gone astray someday see the light not only for their own sake but for the sake of a community without trash strewn about along the roadside.