Yesterday, I arrived at the grocery store just in time for a show. I pulled up as an employee was wheeling some trash and food (two different things) out to the dumpster.
After tossing the clear bags of trash, the employee turned to the four watermelons in the cart. I sat in my car dumbfounded (and wishing I had my camera or camcorder or had a video phone) as he proceeded to chuck the round watermelons into the blue dumpster. Argh.
Here’s the thing, though: He didn’t just toss them, he whipped them. It was like watching someone work out with a medicine ball. The guy seemed to enjoy watching them explode against the back wall of the dumpster. Double argh.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the feeling. I’ve done the same with late November jack-o’-lanterns. I even remember doing it once or twice when I had to throw away produce while working at a supermarket.
But I kept wondering why these watermelons had gone from food to dumpster fodder. I didn’t get a close enough look at them–pre-bashing–to find out, but I’d bet a week’s worth of groceries that I would have eaten one of those melons. In the end, though, they were just a casualty of our food system.
Be that as it may, the store could at least compost! Or use the watermelons to make something as simple as the above carving.
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Simple? You call that simple?
THE COLD CUTS WOMAN AT KROGER
told me she’d thrown three cooked chickens
& two turkey breasts plus the leftover
prepped spaghetti & deviled eggs
into a dumpster out back of the store last night
told me she’d once worked for Acme Food Service
where a mountain of scraps met the trash every
day but her boss let her bring in her grandkids
for meatloaf & mashed potatoes twice a week
told me she’d given up hope at Kroger
knowing her coworkers went home pinched
it was cold last night when she dumped the stuff
the wind caught a cold in her heart