This morning for me was like most Monday mornings; get up at 5:15, head to the gym, stop at the local grocery store to pick up this week’s items. It was there that this story begins.

When I pull into the grocery store parking lot on most Monday mornings, there are multiple store employees outside cleaning up the trash left by past store patrons. For the most part, it is small stuff like water bottles, pieces of paper, cigarette box and occasionally an apple core or some other fruit leftover.

When I got there this morning, there were very few people at the store as it had just opened for the day so I parked right up front next to the handicap spaces. I opened my door and promptly stepped on a discarded water bottle. As we had a light dusting of snow on the ground, the usual crew was not out cleaning up. But still I looked at the bottle and thought, "Seriously? You couldn't have waited and thrown this out in your recycle bin?" I discarded the thought and went to do my shopping. (No, I didn’t pick it up.)

About 40 minutes later I was back in the parking lot. As I rolled my cart over to my car I noticed some bags of trash that were on the ground a couple spaces over from where I was parked. (See picture) They were not there when I went in. This was not a "little" trash but rather a bunch of it! "SERIOUSLY!" I thought again. The small stuff is enough to make me wonder what people are thinking when they just drop their trash on the ground, but this? This was beyond what I expected to see at 7:40am.

After I loaded my groceries, I took my cell phone out and snapped a picture of the garbage. As I did, a man had just driven into the lot and had parked across from where I was. He saw me with my camera and looked at the trash and shook his head. He commented "Nice thing to be teaching the kids, eh?" I snapped my picture then went over and picked up the bags and deposited them in the trash receptacle that was only a short distance away (since we were parked right up front and there is a trash receptacle right by the door!). The man who had commented watched me do this and as I walked away he said "Thank you! Not too many people would have done that." I told him it was no problem and that I too, couldn't believe someone would just dump that out of their car and drive off.

Of course you look at it from the position of the person who left the mess and they are probably thinking "Great!" I got someone else to clean up my mess. Or maybe they were thinking (and I have actually heard this one before!) "I wouldn't want to put someone out of a job. You know they pay these people to clean up the lot." One last time...SERIOUSLY???

It really makes me wonder what these people’s homes look like. Is there trash strewn all over their house? I am guessing these are the same folks who yell at their kids to clean up their rooms. I agree with the man in the parking lot - nice thing to be teaching the kids. "Don't worry honey; just throw that out the window. Someone will pick it up for you."

How about teaching the kids AND the adults to respect their surroundings, the environment and other people. It's just trash. We have it, will always have some form of it and it needs to be disposed of - properly. All it takes is a few seconds to walk it over to the trash receptacle and throw it in there.

Please remember to show a little respect for your surroundings, the environment and other people. Put your trash where it belongs – in the trash basket!