Another Moment with Pearl and Mary: The Litter Talk

There was a bit of carrot in the bathroom sink at work.

Carrot.

I call Mary. 

“Hmm?”

Things were so much more formal before our numbers were identifiable.

“It’s Pearl.”

“I know that,” she says, chuckling.  “What up?”

“In the bathroom,” I say, looking around.  I lower my voice.  “There’s a carrot in the bathroom sink here.”

I can hear Mary blinking from here.  “A whole carrot?”

 “No.  Just a bit large enough to be identifiable.”  I sigh.  “Who would leave a piece of carrot in the lousy sink?”

Mary sighs.  “What’s happened to us, man?  We used to care about our bathroom sinks.”

“Doesn’t anyone remember the Crying Indian?”

Children of the 70s, Mary and I have fond and sometimes vigilant attitudes about littering.

“It’s a shame,” I say.

“A crying shame,” she amends.  “Did I tell you about the car I chased down the street last summer?”

I am caught short with the thought that Mary has experienced something that she has not told me about.  “Does this tie in?”

“It does,” she says. 

“Proceed,” I say.

“Well,” she says, “As you are aware, I do quite a bit of walking with T-Bone.”

T-Bone, a black lab/smallish bison mix with the sincere eyes of a dog that loves you very, very much, figures in many of Mary’s stories.

“I am aware of this.”

“So I’m walking over by the path.  You know the path?  That one by my house?”

I don’t, not really, but I pretend I do.  “Yes,” I say.

“Well we’re on that, walking, and coming up on that parking lot over by the motorcycle dealership?  And right over there, I see this guy in a pickup throw a couple bags of garbage out the passenger window!”

“No!”

“Yes!  And so you know me, I go running after them.  ‘Hey!’ I’m yelling.  ‘Hey!  You forgot your garbage!’”

“Did they stop?”

Mary exhales sharply.  “What do you think?  No they didn’t stop!  They’re squealing away and there I am, running behind them screaming ‘Pick up your mess!  Get back here and pick up your mess!’”

There is a brief pause.

“Ran for a good block,” she says. 

I smile.  She can’t see it, of course, but I am confident that she knows.  We’re professionals.

“Ever see ‘em again?” I ask.

“Nope,” she says.  “Now would you do me a favor and pull that carrot out of the sink?”

And we both laugh. 

Because we both know I’ve already done it.