Wednesday, February 17, 2010

One Man's Trash is another Man's Heaping Pile of Trash

I walked down the sidewalk, stopping momentarily to admire the fine craftsmanship behind the obnoxiously uneven pavement. I wished I had a pack mule to aide my journey. More pressing annoyances lay just fifty yards ahead of me, however. I thought for a moment about diving into the bushes and pulling out a pair of binoculars to survey the dangerous garage sale type scene before me. Had I enlisted the help of some of those Invisible Children I’d been given so many pamphlets about, perhaps my trek could go undetected. I was going commando, in that sense, however so I had no choice but to venture on alone. I was bombarded with books of psalms, notices to be saved from the horrifying sin I didn’t even know I was committing, advertisements for student work that was probably run by a cult, books on meditation offered to me by a Buddhist monk named “Vishnu” (he looked more like a Steve in those khaki pants and fishing hat) and, naturally, coupons for Papa John’s. I thought all the imaginary boxes marked “kitchen” and “fragile” and “get rid of this shit” had finally been emptied. How could I turn the tables? Perhaps my act of refuse laden retribution would come soon. Maybe the next time a knife wielding, puppy toting terrorist was caught in the middle of an explosive episode of this bizarre soap opera I found myself acting in each day. Then it would be me standing on the sidewalk, handing everyone a reminder to pick up their commemorative DVDs, t-shirts, and hats. In the meantime, I went home with my new collection of shit and gave it that bit of sentiment it was lacking in the hands of those mindless assholes that interrupted my morning walk. I put them into a shoebox and buried them the next day beneath the home of the Keepers of Cooper, whose soft purrs and meowing motherly instincts kept them protected, and where they belonged—surrounded by a pile of dirt.

3 comments:

  1. I have no idea what prose poetry is. That being said, your biting scoail commentary on navigating the perils of college life in and around Cooper Hall is admirable. Now to tackle that unidentifiable smell in and around the computer banks in the library.

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  2. We could turn this into our own writing movement. Let's truly explore the depths of USF and explain what was previously unexplained.

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