” I have less patience with someone who doesn’t wear a watch than with anyone else, for this type isn’t time conscious”
- Alex Haley quoting Malcolm X in the epilogue of 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X'
Sometimes I'm amazed by the things that some people can make due without. I'm not talking about the ascetic that renounces material possessions and sets off to live in a cave, nor do I mean those smug bastards that love to tell people "I don't own a television". No, I'm referring to those people that seem to go throughout their daily lives without the things we normally take for granted as necessities for living in modern society. I have a friend that lived on his own for 5+ years without owning plates or cutlery, he just ate takeout and drank bottled water all the time (he may have had a coffee mug that also served as a cereal bowl, but I can't say for sure). I used to know a guy that lived in a corrugated steel shed up in the mountains of Arizona and didn't own a toothbrush or soap. Of course there are a ton of reasons why someone might find themselves living like this: poverty, mental illness, raised by wolves, etc.. but sometimes you come across someone that's just clueless.
Years ago I had a neighbor that I didn't especially like. She wasn't a terrible person or anything, just not the type of person that you want to live next door to in an 100+ year old building that has thin walls. For the first few months she lived next to me I thought she must have been a single mother with a retarded infant, turns out she just had a cat that she liked to speak to. Anyhow, one night I was awakened by some loud banging on my apartment door at 1am. I opened the door to find my neighbor looking embarrassed, "Do you have a plunger I can borrow?" she asked, now I'm not a germophobe or anything, but this was a pretty intimate request from a relative stranger and it kind of caught me off guard. Not only did I not know her well enough to share that sort of bond with her, but honestly, she was built like a mack truck and I wasn't so sure I wanted the residue of anything that came out of her, sitting on the plunger that I kept in my bathroom. It being However, 1am and me being still half asleep I foolishly agreed to allow her to take one of my possessions, smear her feces all over it and then return it so that I could store it in my home. I'm a sucker, but I digress....
The thing I'm struck by is how can anyone in their right mind own a toilet but not a plunger? The sheer hubris it must take to think that one doesn't need a plunger is staggering. It's like driving around with out a spare tire, or performing a high-wire act without a net. Getting this glimpse into the inner workings of her mind terrified me. How could I feel safe living next to such an irresponsible person? In the months after this horrible exchange I would often return to my building expecting to see a fire crew cleaning up after some horrible gas explosion that she caused by leaving her stove on, or something equally horrifying.
Although she moved out of the building before she could do any real damage, her plunger request has left an indelible mark on my brain. While Malcolm may not be able to suffer fools who waste other's time, I cannot abide living near animals that foolishly tempt fecal fate by not owning a plunger. It's as if they have a naive sense of entitlement that leads them to believe that their toilets will always accept whatever they try to put down them. It's wrong and dangerous, and in my book, that shit don't flush.
Be responsible.
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