oN pAPER tOWELS

On a small sign taped to my middle school art room paper towel dispenser was this message: WHY TAKE TWO WHEN ONE WILL DO? Apparently, the school admin was a little stingy with paper towels and the janitor just a tad too slow on the refills. In addition, my art teacher liked to discourage excess and thus created the sign. Still, I suspect that part of the reason for the classroom conservation was the trash can clutter.

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When I say ‘trash can clutter,’ I am referring to refuse around indoor trash cans, most often in restaurant and retail bathrooms. In an ideal world, garbage would leave a person’s hand and enter the receptacle, perhaps even with a congratulatory beep signifying a hard-earned two points. Given that garbage cans are placed conveniently within a few feet of their counterpart paper towel dispensers, it is a shock that a certain percentage of them never arrive. By the time I come around, the garbage is strewn about the can, as if disposal by approximation does the trick.

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At what point did it become ok to take a step back and assume the role of Cro-magnon man? Are people going to start hunting their neighbors’ cats? Perhaps it’s time we resurrect our ancient ape language which utilized farts as verb modifiers?

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There are two kinds of Cro-magnon patrons: 1) the kind that misses the can and refuses to correct him/herself and 2) the kind that recognizes such acts, abhors it, yet does nothing about it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just about everybody.

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This is one problem that’s not going away any time soon. As long as it’s someone else’s job to pick up the garbage, we have a society-endorsed blank check to be as messy as we want.

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Perhaps the process of throwing away our dirty paper towels could be made easier. After all, some genius invented the hand dryer as well as the cloth towel that makes laps within the dispenser. But ultimately, they tried and failed. We Americans just love our paper towels. Sure, some places have the problem taken care of, but these measures do little to address the real problem, that deep-seated human urge to be royally disgusting.

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Okay, so paper towels on the ground is a far cry from the “royally” modifier. But where does it end? I heard about a small food parlor that had a couple of teenage girls who had locked themselves in the bathroom for thirty minutes. The girls were giggling and making noises and aside from occupying the bathroom for so long were being generally disruptive. Other customers complained, and they were finally asked to leave by an angry manager. The girls skipped out of the bathroom, laughing, and ran out of the store. A quick peek into the W.C. revealed what the girls had been up to during that unfortunate half hour. They had wiped feces over all six sides of the bathroom. This was an extreme case, yes, but you get the idea.

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Perhaps the real problem is a lack of ownership. It’s not mine, so what does it matter? This is a difficult belief to challenge because given a certain point of view it’s entirely accurate. What does it really matter if I leave this paper towel on the counter or directly in the can if someone else is going to do it anyway? But these are the final defenses of someone trying to prove his or her point of view to someone else trying to impose his or her point of view.

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And therein lies the magic of my old art teacher’s sign. It questioned you without judging you. It asked you to consider something about your environment, both in the classroom and the world at large, and to wrap your mind around your participation in that space. That little couplet challenged the notion that you are not responsible, that we are not responsible.

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In short, it reminded you that you are not alone.

oN "mOST pEOPLE"

There’s a disturbing trend among American conversations (perhaps among other cultures as well) that is undermining how we understand and communicate information with one another. It pops up daily without warning in many conversations, my own included (though I’m quick to correct myself), and is a terrible crutch on which to lean. I’m referring to the use of a supporting statement that begins with the impossible-to-know phrase “Most people…”

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“Most people…” is used at the start of a personal opinion to justify said opinion within the context of a discussion or argument. It can also take the form of “Not very many people…” or even the meaningless “Some people…” Because such a statement is inherently sweeping and grandiose and requires experience and knowledge impossible to obtain, one may deduce that it is sheer crème de la crap, the main pile of crap being the feeble opinion on which such a defense usually rests.

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For example, take the sentence “Most people prefer to settle down in one place.” There is a general vagueness on several levels. Poor people without mobility (think New Orleans post-Katrina) have no choice but to stay put, so could settling down by necessity ever be considered a preference? Rich people (think John McCain) have the capacity to own several homes, so with a varied yearly itinerary that could consist of several destinations, is this considered settled down? Of the younger people I’ve met, there’s a considerable amount of movement between cities and states, so does “most people” refer to those individuals after a certain age, married or coupled, children or not?

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The people who use these kinds of statements and stand by them don’t take these issues into account. By slapping on “most people…” to an opinion, a neat, seemingly self-evident, faux explanation is given of a potentially complex issue.

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A personal truth can be a lot simpler than all of this hullabaloo. For example, watch the complexity fade away with the following: “Liz and I would prefer to settle down in one place.” The speaker and Liz are experts about their own lives and can comment easily as such.

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But sometimes there is no personal truth buried within a “most people…” statement. Sometimes, advice or judgment is woven within to exert a certain amount of pressure on the audience. The advice “You should settle down” is not an easy one to digest for someone who enjoys a fluid, mobile lifestyle, but it is direct, its meaning understood as well as its speaker (the person who stands behind such advice). The moment that it is disguised as “Most people prefer to settle down” is just about time a person might want to consider bailing on the conversation.

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So why do people say such things in the first place? For one, it’s easy. Who would want to place a conversation on hold every time a questionable statement came up that might require research? But more than that, it’s just easier to believe in our own appraisal of the world at large. For example, I go through this world with the assumption that most chairs work. I don’t want to waste my time checking the structure of every chair I sit in. If I questioned all of my perceptions of the world every time one became relevant to the moment at hand, I would cease to function in this world as a normal human being. There’s simply too much to fact-check.

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Still, it’s better to speak plainly, given the choice. There’s enough ambiguity in this world as it is, in our actions, our glances, our body language, that if we can simplify our language and meaning, I for one believe we’d be better off for it. I don't mean most people either. I mean all of us.