Are You Picking Up What I'm Putting Down?

                           Are You Picking Up What I'm Putting Down?

 "Here Buddy! Come on Boy! Good boy, come get your dinner. Prepared just the way you like it. Fresh out of the can like Thanksgiving cranberry jelly. And speaking of Thanksgiving you'd better start saying your prayers that they don't raise the price of dog food over the new B.C. recycling program. You know they want to charge the companies that make your yummy 'Beef Chunks in Gravy' the cost of recycling their product. There's a good boy! Not to worry Daddy will still buy you the canned food.  It's grandma that's going to get hit the hardest on her fixed income. She loves her 'Beef Chunks in Gravy'. Combine this new problem with her gambling problem at the casino, and her easy access to a bus route, I'll never see a penny of inheritance."

 "Atta boy, clean it all up. What's that boy? ....You think municipal taxes will drop now the burdens on the producer to cover recycling? Ahhhh,..That's why your mans best friend and not smartest friend."

 "Do you remember I told you what we do when we leave you here alone during the day? Thats riiight, mommy and daddy go to work. And every day that we go we bring home less and less it seems.  I know you think we drive to work with the windows down and our heads sticking out.  And, that all the new interesting smells from the office should in itself be enough to make the day worthwhile. But sadly no. Its hard work, long hours away from home and more of our income goes out to buying essentials and paying taxes every year. We have to shop for deals and spend wisely to save a dollar. More and more time is allocated toward smart buying, and now proper waste management of  all the things we buy."

 "Let's go walkies! Come on Buddy outside! See all the collection boxes scattered in front of every house? That's right it's Garbage Eve, your favorite night for a walk. So many smells! Garbage cans, Green Carts, Blue Boxes with yellow and blue bags and now an added new Grey Cart system. Box after box filled with more boxes, papers, plastics and glass bottles fill the neighbourhood sidewalks. If only you could see all the pretty colours.  Everything that we've bought in the last week that we didn't eat is now at the curb. Load after load, hauled to the curb making the font of your house looking like a really bad yard sale! That's right you bark at them, don't you. The ones that dig through our garbage like we're some sort of Hollywood Star. Privacy and recycling bandits looking for a morsel bit they can get a nickel for. Your whole life is at the curb for the whole world to rummage through. My love for Twinkies and Captain Crunch is now known by anyone who walks by. Whats that? Or watches me try to bend over to pick up the paper? It's a good thing your my best friend."

 "How did we get here? No, not here boy, but here as in the waste we throw away. Look at our streets! For one night every week we humans show the universe how wasteful we are. Aliens must wonder who could be in charge to produce this must wasted product. Then they see me picking up what you just laid down in my bag covered hand and surmise that dogs are the masters of earth. For only a supreme being could get a human to do that. It's your fault Buddy! You and your expensive dog food cans!" 

 "Come on let's mark a few more Blue Boxes and head home......Oh look, I thought Jim was in A.A."

Bob Niles