Blogging in the Real World & the Straw Wars

I wish I was a person who did things like mountain climbing or sailing from port to port or monitoring endangered species in the wild, if only so I’d have more to blog about. I do wish I could generate more than two blogs a week but who wants to read the minute-by-minute details of a seventy-something woman’s life who has no job or goals beyond the obvious?---eat, sleep, and wake up every morning. No one wants to read about the keys on my keyboard that stick or how often I ask Alexa how to spell something and I end up yelling at her for misdirecting me to words I have no interesting in using. And what about that Windows 10 update that put my printer out of commission just before I needed it for e-Bay labels? Does anyone really care that at my age I was able to puzzle out the fix without calling the Geek Squad? Well, I care but that's beside the point. In the real world if I did live the life of an adventurer or was involved in scientific investigation---like how do elephants react to whale vocalizations and visa versa?---I probably wouldn’t have the time to write a daily blog. Is that a dichotomy or what? Seriously, is that a dichotomy? How else would you describe a situation where you’re too busy living to write a blog but if you’re not a busy person you have nothing to write about?

As it is, my blog drives me out of the house more often than I’d care to admit. I go out looking for human interaction and to prove I’m still alive and not a figment of my own imagination. A few days ago, for example, I went to a busy park where a trail brings bikers and walkers by a river observation area with benches where people like me sit and eat ice cream. The only words I said that day were, “I’d like a single scoop of mint chocolate” and “thank you.”  But the sun was shining and I soaked it up, wishing I had the dog with me because he likes watching the swans floating at the top of the dam as much as I do. How do they know not to get so close that the current takes them over the falls, landing them below where there are usually five-six guys standing in the water fly fishing? Don’t they have jobs? I’ve often wondered of those fisherman---not the swans---and do they really trust eating fish caught in that water? A shoe factory that tanned leather used to dump their waste water in that river and, wells at houses all over the area have recently been found to have dangerous levels of toxic PFAS contamination. 

It seems like each generation has to clean up the messes of the previous generation’s ignorance. Were there people back when it was legal to dump toxic crap in rivers, who knew it wasn’t a smart thing to do? Did they have their plastic versus paper straws debates back then? The Trump campaign store is now selling plastic straws---a 10-pack for $15.00 “because Liberal paper straws don’t work,” Trump proclaims. I can’t believe straws have become symbolic of Right versus Left! I guess they want to brag that they are a party who doesn’t care about killing wildlife or polluting the oceans. Trump thinks paper straws are an invention of the far Left, as evil as evil gets. And as a card carrying member of the Left, I think Trump is as evil as evil gets. He’d probably enjoy pulling the wings off butterflies if he hadn’t found a job where he gets to mess with human lives instead.

I’ve been carrying my own paper and stainless steel straws since April of last year when I saw a video of sea turtle getting a straw removed from his nose. Back then I wrote: “Have you heard about the movement nicknamed Straw Wars? ‘National Skip the Straw Day’ took place in February so I’m late to the party. If you are too, let me introduce you to the cause. According to National Geographic Magazine Americans use 500 million plastic straws DAILY. They are a particularly insidious pollution because they are often the cause of death for marine animals. Plastic straws are an unnecessary pollutant because there are Eco-friendly wax coated paper straws and reusable stainless steel to take their place or we can go straw-less altogether.” 

Perhaps you’ve been in restaurants who’ve joined the war and either don’t automatically give you a straw or they’ve switched to paper or adult sippy-cups. Where I live, they are becoming common and when I pull out my paper straw young wait-staff are quick to offer positive reinforcement. The Millenniums are driving the Straw Wars into action in the food service industry and very quickly. Makes me think of a Bible verse. “…and a little child shall lead them.” They are social media savvy and are going to be a force to recon with as they take over the world. At least that's my hope. 

Trump plastic straws sold out the same day they were first offered and are on back order. And that begs the question: Will the Straw Wars become iconic? Will people a hundred years from now be standing on mounds of plastic garbage proclaiming victory or will the other side be shaking their heads and wonder how those who are opposing paper straws could have been so wrong-headed? You know, in the future when whales and dolphins no longer die with pounds of one-time use plastic in their tummies and plastic bags and straws no longer kill over 100,000 marine creatures and a million sea birds annually because they are either all instinct... or enough ordinary people in this decade cared and gave up their one-time use plastic and saving the planet snowballed from there. ©