Nuchem, the favorite character I love to
detest on the series
“Shtisel” says this phrase routinely. He usually is referencing the Zionists, or
the Gentiles, or anyone who crosses him:
“Damn evil people.” In his own
esteem, he is a blameless orthodox Jew who only cuts the corners he feels he is
entitled to cut… We all know how that is.
We’d like to hold all others to the highest of standards – Biblical and
otherwise – but for ourselves, ah, “mercy, mercy!”
Perhaps it is because of people like Nuchem – and every
religion and group of people has them – Jesus taught His followers to pray to
G-D in heaven, “and forgive us, as we
forgive those who trespass against us.”
Impossible, right? This is why we
pray it, and don’t declare that we’ve accomplished it already. Because if we were already forgiving that
perfectly then we’d be … oh, probably dead, because dead people are the only
ones who have completely let go. And
even then, I would make a case for the tormented souls who come back to haunt houses
or pester those that wronged them. Even
in death, perhaps there are some that cannot let go.
My friend Mary’s saintly mother always used to say to us: “Let
go, and Let God” and she’d smile at us.
Perhaps she knew how that saying tormented us, each being Type-A
personalities. We like justice. We like peace and order. And I think we each secretly suspect that “if
everyone would just do what I say I wouldn’t have to be so bossy!” (I have a picture that says that in my
house. In the photo, I am four years old
in my little pinafore dress, pointing my finger at the camera, mouth wide open.) “If everyone would just do what I say, I
wouldn’t have to be so bossy!”
I think of Nuchem and his “damn evil people” grumblings when I clean the litter box. Here’s why. When I was growing up – back when dinosaurs roamed the earth freely – we used paper bags for groceries. Then someone decided we were killing too many trees with making our paper bags. So, they put the social pressure out and paper bags all but vanished. In their place came wispy plastic bags. And this is where the old adage “history repeats itself” comes into play. Happily, we used plastic bags.
The new set of “damn evil people” began patronizing us referring
to them as “single-use-bags.” I almost attacked
the last person who said that to me.
They ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT SINGLE-USE
BAGS! In fact, at one point I had so
many of these multi-use bags at my house (tucked handily into …. One big bag)
it’d require a dump truck to clean them out if I decided to, well, die or
something. I re-used them for moving
casseroles to friends’ houses if I thought the food would spill. I threw sneakers in them and tossed them into
my vehicle in case I needed sneakers in an emergency. (What kind of emergency requires sneakers, I
do not know. Probably situations where
flip-flops break or shoes get wet.) The
multi-use list goes on and on, but my all-time-favorite use for
those bags was to clean up after the amazing cat that loads the litterbox like
four or five times a day.
So, the single-use bags were definitely NOT single-use for
me…. And now They are demonizing my plastic bags. One guy said to me: “use paper bags.” Clearly, we stopped caring about trees. Clearly, he has never cleaned a cat box. Clearly, he has bought the damn evil lie.
Another moment of educating The Millenials: this is NOT about saving sea turtles. The U.S. wasn’t dumping OUR plastic
bags. Your mother, your grandmother and
I have all been re-using them. It was
some ignorant – and I say that in Christian charity (what’s left of mine) –
foreign country that was just dumping their landfill into the ocean. THE PEOPLE are the problem. Not the turtles. Not the bags.
IT’S THE PEOPLE.
And, not only is this NOT about saving turtles. It is about money. Because – guess what – I now have to BUY
specially produced, recycled …. Plastic bags with handles you can tie in order
to scoop out the litterbox 4 times a day.
Thicker bags, one use, and I now get to pay for it.
Damn evil people.
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