Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We decide that, “We will stop this and never do it again.” That holds until we discover “this” and “it” are necessary.

I flew to California recently. On the flight, instead of giving us a bag of pretzels, they gave us a clear plastic bad that had a small clear plastic bottle of water with a cookie wrapped in plastic and pretzels wrapped in plastic.

Before the year of the virus, such packaging and distribution would have been vilified as a horrible use of petroleum (fossil fuels) and landfill. Now, however, these sanitary wrappings are wonderful life savers—a necessity.

Go back two years. “Times have changed. This world has changed. Attitudes have changed.” Landfills are full of petroleum-based plastics. Stop it. No more. We have refillable water bottles that are not made of fossil fuels (we use lots of fossil fuels to make them, but never mind).

The past year we have nothing but plastic bottles and bags holding water and cookies and face masks and hand sanitizer. Goodness, did you ever think you would see so much hand sanitizer everywhere? And then there was all that plastic wrap around all those mountains of toilet paper.

Funny how we’ve changed what we consider good and evil and necessary. We are an odd lot.