Contemplating O.J.


So, one of the more interesting thing about life in Japan is garbage. With a 127 million or so people on the island, space is at a premium. As a result, there are very explicit instructions for dealing with the trash. Trash must be sorted into recyclable, burnable or non-burnable. For the burnable, you must place it into a semi-transparent special bag that is also burnable. As I throw something away, I often contemplate, "Will it burn?" I feel a little like David Letterman as I walk toward the gas stove to test my theory. Of course, before I actually turn on the burner, I remember that's probably why the house across the street burnt down in the first place. Yet another engineering's abode destroyed in the quest for knowledge.

Once sorted, the challenge of actually disposing the trashing only increases. The O.J. boxes that I'm contemplating up top has three steps in Japanese explaining how to take it apart. I hope to succeed before the night is out.