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The Crowe's Nest |
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I'm breaking bad. I've been breaking bad for some time now. What's worse is that I'm not ashamed to admit it. It started some time back when the city of Chattanooga discontinued it's weekly curbside recycle pickup and put it on a once a month basis. I tried it for a while until I got tired of piling up about a dozen bags against my house in the backyard and toting them out to the curbside every third Wednesday of each month. So I started putting everything into my giant trash container on wheels that the city provides for everybody. By everything, I mean everything. Not just garbage but cans, bottles and paper. Instead of hurting my conscience, like one might expect, it gave me an immediate sense of relief which quickly turned into an expansive feeling of freedom. Freedom, any kind of freedom, can be very addictive. It wasn't long after this that I started flipping the remains of my cigarettes onto my driveway. Sometimes I grind them out with my heel and sometimes I don't even do that. This freedom of tossing my cigarette butts onto my driveway has moved beyond freedom and caused me to have a rather smug sense of pride because of the fact that I can do it and nobody can stop me. I especially love to do it when there's a woman nearby to see me do it. I love the way their eyes get big and it amuses me to see the look of shock and horror that comes to their faces. How could I have known how emancipating it would be to toss my cigarettes out on my driveway? Sure, I'll sweep them up when I feel like it, but I'm not anywhere close to feeling like it yet. That's not the worst. I've been saving up old clothes in my closet and in boxes and drawers in my bedroom for years, thinking that someday I would take them to the Goodwill. Guess what? I can feel my new-found bad self tugging at me more and more every day urging me to toss as much of that stuff as I can get into my giant green trash container on wheels every week until I am finally free from that heavy weight that has been on my shoulders all these years. Sure a good citizen would have done the proper thing a long time ago. They would have continued with their recycle duties regardless of how high things piled up or how many bags they had to tote out to the curb. They would keep their driveways clean of cigarette butts and they would give to the poor. But I'm breaking bad and I'm loving it. I'm free and I'm going to get more free until I have nothing hanging over me. And I have the city of Chattanooga to thank for it. Thanks for opening the door that allowed me to break loose from the rules and be my bad self once again and do what I doggone please.
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