AT on: Plastic Garbage Bags on Door Knobs
It’s finally happened. We’ve got a garbage bag hanging from our front door knob. This is a sure sign of slipping into real urban slackerdom and more decay. We’ve become one of THEM.
One of my pet peeves in NYC is the ubiquitous use of plastic shopping bags for easy garbage disposal instead of using the actual garbage bin. You know what I mean. It’s done all over town because its EASY. We’ve even been in SUPER fancy apartments and seen the same thing. We’ve fought hard to avoid it in our own home. But last week we slipped…
We had an overload of junk mail combined with the finishing of a grocery trip, and SKGR did what any natural urbanite would do, she bypassed the garbage can (which is SMALL) and combined the new garbage (and recycling) in the shopping bag.
When I snapped a pic of this bag, it had been there since the late afternoon and it’s entire expected lifespace was going to take it to the following morning. I was feeling so freaked out by the arrival of this cultural deformity that I had to take it right outside to the garbage that evening.
Once you start doing this, it becomes a habit, and it strikes us as incredibly strange that New Yorker’s, who spend so much in taking care of their homes, crown their kitchens with this flagrant foul of a visual eyesore.
We even know people who never use their garbage can, and ONLY use the little bag around a knob.
These are the neatnicks, the ones who are so concerned about garbage and clutter that they’d rather not even have a garbage can at all. To them the little bag is a small price to pay and one that signals an imminent exit. It’s only temporary. But with new ones growing every day, it soon becomes a permanent part of the landscape.
How many people do you know that grow these little bags in their kitchens? Are we alone in our abhorrence? Does anyone agree?