Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Lazy, and suffering for it:

The author Walter R. Brooks is responsible for one of my favorite observations: that lazy people work harder. This observation may not always be true, but let me tell you, once you're aware of it, you always think about it when it is. I recently hauled all of my recyclable garbage, cans, bottles and piles of newspapers, out to the verge on the wrong day for pickup. I realized my mistake almost at once, they were going to sit there for six days unless I lugged them all back into my garage.

In the good old days I would just have left them there. The “good old days” in this case refers to the days before our local government put a beautiful strip of grass, such as we have never had before, all along the verge on our street. I'm proud of my new grass, and if I just left my garbage cans on it for six days, some of that grass would likely die. But I was DARNED if I was going to haul the heavy cans back to the garage right now, and haul them back to the verge six days later.

So each and every morning, I went out and carefully moved those heavy cans to new spots, giving the grass hidden under the cans a well-deserved rest. Those cans never sat too long on any precious blade of grass, and six days later my garbage was picked up.

Yes, I was lazy! And yes, I paid for it.

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