This is Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle. Have you ever woke up and wondered where in the world you are? That happens to us all the time. But if you are a frog, well, sometimes you have the same question when you are trapped in an RV with 2 Traveling Dogs and two tired persons who are camping by a dump.
As Girl Person woke up yesterday, the first thing she thought of was the mud in her cup and if Boy Person was going to make their french press coffee or was she? No, persons, we aren’t in France. Again. We are by a dump.
The second thing she thought of was why was there a frog in her bedroom looking out of the window? There he was. He had a look of longing in his eyes. To get outside. To go home. But he could not. It broke Girl Person’s heart. She couldn’t believe how intense his feelings were.
He was just sitting there being pretty as I do on most days. On the other days, I sit there looking prettier.
First, she wondered if she would be able to get him out without screaming. Sure, she loves all creatures. But the slimy feeling in her hand she is not so fond of. She tries to hold back the screaming, but it never works. She tried to put this aside, and as she picked him up, the frog tried to get away and lodged himself in-between the window and the screen. Well, this was a predicament. She couldn’t get him out without hurting him, so she let him rest for a moment until he realized she was only trying to help him. He jumped back out at her, in her hair, and there was no use worrying about the gray there. Because there was a frog there and ain’t no amount of hair tonic gonna cure that, y’all.
She had two choices. And usually, that’s about what it comes down to in life with everything. You do something or you don’t. She could run and lose the frog who knows where. Or she could calm the ribbit down and wait till it jumped down. So she opened the window, she stuck her head out the window, and he saw his chance. He jumped out of her hair like the fury of frogs on a rainy night. Except it wasn’t raining, except for frogs out of Girl Person’s hair who desperately needs a salon.
Girl Person sat down and wondered when anyone else was going to get up and why she had not woke anyone up. And she wondered if there was enough mud in her cup to get her through the day. The day ahead was overwhelming. There was work to be done. There were messes to clean up. There was trash to take away. There were things to ponder, like how did my monkey get there?
And Girl Person thought of the irony of the dump because she had no answer about the monkey or the frog. Or her hair. Certainly. Here we were, camped right next to this dump. People had no problem throwing everything away in this dump. But they did have a problem recycling. Just like the frog had a rough start to the day, she knew what his lesson was. It’s not that easy being green.
Some places we have traveled to, they make it easy to be green and to recycle. But other places don’t recycle at all. So what do the persons do? Well, Boy Person often drives it to places that do recycle. And it’s a dern pain, y’all. A dern pain. No. It’s not easy. It’s not easy at all.
But just like getting a frog out of your hair before you drink your coffee isn’t easy, doing the right thing isn’t always easy either. We may not think something is a big deal. Until we have to deal with it later. Like when Deputy Digby eats an old sandwich on the trail.
But if we leave our problems for other people to deal with, how nice is that? It may seem like an easier thing to just throw everything away until the dump is so high and grows so large that there is nowhere else to go. And then you have to camp by it.
We may all look different, we may be from different places. Some places make it easy to do the right thing. Some places will make it hard. But we all live on the same earth and we can’t fool ourselves. We all have the same responsibility.
I do know this as much as I know that little frog wanted to get back outside. The earth is his home the same way it is ours. We all love it. We all long to be free. Don’t let your trash pile up, because one day, you may not be able to get out.
-Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle
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I have to ask myself why we don’t seem to get the idea of recycling, why don’t more community waste removal programs incorporate simple separation of waste items — cans, glass, plastic, paper, wet garbage. In Japan where my son lives, you have several different levels, but at the very least there are three separate receptacles for your household items. In public places — train stations, parks, street corners, whatever, they’re clearly marked, It’s not that hard if we’d just do it.