Top 10 Frustrating (and Funny) Experiences with Going Green by Gia Machlin, August 18 2009, 1 Comment
Thanks for all your input on experiences with going green. I selected the following Top 10 from your submissions:
#10 Rob Dorfman of San Francisco: Trying to take the bus to the airport only to find out that the bus does not accept luggage! I'm not kidding! See the "luggage restriction" on the samTrans schedule.
MY SUGGESTION: I got nothing.
#9 LuAnn Glowacz of Austin, Texas: Trying to resist the temptation to "poison the house and yard" and cover my 3 year old with full strength DEET and "fabulously toxic anti-itch creams" after a summer of terrible bug bites.
MY SUGGESTION: Try natural bug-repelling oils such as lemon eucalyptus oil, rosemary oil and lavender oil.
#8 Jennifer Taggart, www.thesmartmama.com: Trying to make my own dishwashing detergent only to end up with baked on spots on every dish - spots that were glued on like superglue and wouldn't come off despite the most valiant of efforts with everything from scouring pads to Goo Gone. She had to re-purpose those dishes for art projects.
MY SUGGESTION: I'm assuming you've tried this, but I have had pretty good results with Seventh Generation Dishwashing Powder.
#7 Mary Talalay of Baltimore, MD: Buying a manual lawn mower only to have my husband insist on following with "the exceptionally loud and emission-spewing blower." Now she mows when her husband isn't home and rakes and sweeps to keep that blower out of action.
MY SUGGESTION: Throw out the blower and tell your husband to get a greener toy!
#6 Gloria Smith of Middletown, NY: Buying a bunch of reusable totes only to forget them every time I go shopping. This is a very common frustration.
MY SUGGESTION: I've got two: first, keep all your canvas totes in one tote hanging on the front door or sitting in your car. Make it part of your routine after unpacking the groceries to fold up the bags and put them back on the front door or in your car. Second, get a couple of ultra compact foldable shopping bags, like the ChicoBag, and keep them in your pocketbook, gym bag, purse or man-bag. I always have three in my pocketbook, always fold them up and put them back after unpacking and can't remember the last time I used a plastic bag.
#5 Judi Perkins, www.findtheperfectjob.com: Collecting bottles and cans at a funeral reception for recycling afterwards when "someone says to me 'OH! You want the nickels!' I'm like, 'Uh, no, actually I just want to make sure they get recycled.' As if! At a funeral reception? Even if I was that hard up for cash, I hope I'd have better sense!"
MY SUGGESTION: Keep up the good work Judi!
#4 Jan Jaso, thegreenthree.com: (Stay with me - this one's a little complicated). Reusing ripped pantyhose by cutting off the leg with the rip on it and wearing two one-legged pairs and not realizing they were both control-top pantyhose and almost cutting off all normal breathing.
MY SUGGESTION: As you note in your blog - go bare legged!!
#3 Jason Raddenback with www.chimneyballoon.us: Being told by the city to conserve water while the city's answer to a report of a broken water fountain in a city park is “we turn that fountain on around memorial day and let it run until labor day.”
MY SUGGESTION: What city is that, Jason? Maybe we can get a bunch of people to tell them how silly that is.
#2 Stefanie Seacord of Newfields, NH: Joining a farm coop only to drive 20 miles in an SUV 3 times and come home empty handed because the farmer had back problems and didn't show up for work that day.
MY SUGGESTION: Try to find a closer farming cooperative (and try calling to make sure the farmer is in before heading out) ;-)
And the number one frustrating experience with trying to go green:
#1 Amy Shanler of Sudbury, MA: Having all my reusable totes in the carriage of my cart at the supermarket and having them STOLEN from the cart while I turned my head.
MY SUGGESTION: Don't know what to say, Amy, that's just wrong. I guess we can find some comfort in the fact that the thief is going green too!
Comments
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Gia Machlin on May 14 2015 at 12:32PM
Here are the original comments from WordPress in August 2009:
John Rarrick August 19, 2009 at 5:11 pm [edit]
#11… I traded my kick-ass Audi A4 for a 27-year old Mercedes that runs on vegetable oil. This might seem glamorous, until you’ve ruined your third $1,500 suit pouring dirty french fry oil through a 5-micron sock filter.Pablo Solomon August 19, 2009 at 6:35 pm [edit]
You might enjoy this story Gia– For several years my wife and I lived in an upscale golf course community of Houston. We lived on the main entry boulvevard which was separated by a series of esplanades. Every Tuesday and Thursday, the automatic sprinklers would come on and water the grass on the esplanades. They would run so long that water would run off and down the drains. Keep in mind, that this was drinking quality water being wasted by the thousands of gallons. The sprinklers would come on rain or shine, drought or flood. I finally had enough and bought a gizmo to cut off the water—this after the sprinklers came on after a flooding rain of 8 inches in 2 hours. Well, you might think that the homeowners association would commend me for saving water and money. But instead, they sent me letters warning me that I would be cited by the police if I turned off the water again. So I decided, OK I just play along. Because our house was on the downslop of a small bump (no real hills within a hundred miles of Houston) I dammed up the water running along the street curb with a sandbag and siphoned the wasted runoff water into my yard. By the way my yard was the only one in the neighborhood using native plants—another source of irritation to my neighbors. Fast forward to 2009. We recently visited our old neighborhood after moving out 20 years ago to the beautiful Texas Hill Country. As is typical for suburbia, since Green is now the thing, people are putting in solar this and that and are collecting rainwater. Of course every SUV has a “Stop Global Warming” bumper sticker. And the sprinklers still come on every Tuesday and Thursday.Gary August 24, 2009 at 1:14 pm [edit]
Funny stories. Going green is not easy nor funny, but fuuny things sure happenAndrea September 1, 2009 at 12:16 am [edit]
I used to be driven into work by my husband each morning, a chance to chat about life and enjoy our time together. As part of our green-household initiatives, we decided that I should take the bus into work instead. So I traded-in my lovely peaceful chats and laughter for a grumpy bus-driver woman who, despite my best efforts, never smiled, didn’t reply to my good-mornings, would actually IGNORE any question I asked her and would thump her foot down on the accelerator as I was walking to my seat, catapulting me half-way down the bus. Finally last week she smiled. This week she actually talked to me AND waited for me to sit down before she took off. I guess ice does eventually melt in the sun! :-)