“To think what salmon have to swim through….It’s amazing they ever get upstream.” –British Columbia environment minister
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I know the latte guy likes me because he treats me differently than the other customers. He waits on me first. He talks to me while he steams milk. He “accidentally” charges me less than he should. Sometimes he doesn’t charge me at all.
A lot of people would say that it’s not too healthy to get all jazzed up over some guy you hardly know. He could be gay. Or married. Or mentally deranged. Or addicted to heroin.
I’m a terrible person.
Environmentally Correct Fantasy #3: We do the dishes. In reality, I have a dishwasher. Every night before I go to bed, I start it up–regardless of whether or not it’s full. As I lie in bed listening to the malevolent sounds it makes (the gushing, the coughing, the chugging), I’m gripped by the absolute certainty that the dishwasher will explode, killing me in my sleep. I am always surprised when I wake up the next morning, alive, with clean dishes.
Of course, it goes without saying that the latte guy can never come to my apartment. It’s not just the dishwasher, the teeming multitude of plastic bags under the sink, the incriminating bundles of old newspapers. It’s the plastic-applicator tampons. It’s the drip that drums incessantly into the kitchen sink.