An ominous tone vibrates violently amongst the conversations and murmurs. Innocent bystanders look around in terror. Their pace begins to quicken and the scene begins to mirror a colony of ants fleeing in chaos; frightened paths crashing into each other as each seek cover and safety.
They do so for good reason.
Emerging through the very fabric of the air a swarm of creatures descend upon the crowds; screeching, swooping, and clawing in strange and beastly fashion. They scour the ground, mercilessly devouring each morsel of food they may find. The land is left torn and barren, with shards of the destruction scattered amongst the walkways and acidic bombs strewn over the land.
The monsters dawdle momentarily, ensuring they have stolen efficiently, and then leave as quickly as they came -patiently waiting until tomorrow when they will perform the ritualistic raid again.
If only the citizens had possessed enough common sense not to leave their food out, to have the incredible dedication to walk three feet to place their rubbish in a trash can, to refrain from using that milk carton as a weapon to shamelessly douse a good friend. If only, if only, if only.
If only our school didn’t have a seagull problem.
I’ll admit, seeing girls in Ugg boots struggling to power-walk screaming “omigawd this is cray” as they use their bedazzled binders as hats does bring me a chuckle or two. Every once in a while some unlucky soul will receive a hair full of bombings, and despite their whimpering everyone else enjoys the event thoroughly.
But the joke ends about there.
Realistically the amount of effort it would take the campus as a whole to almost totally deplete the amount of trash on ths campus is miniscule. If everyone picked up one piece of trash a day – or better yet didn’t leave their trash laying about at all – the campus would be clean as a whistle. Not only that, but the custodians could worry less about twinkie rappers, and more about bathroom infernos.
Imagine it, a beautiful school amidst the peaceful suburbs. Flocks of seagulls fly about, yet to no avail. They fail to find a scrap to eat, and they slowly die off, falling neatly into a mound in the parking lot. Once all the birds have died, Carlsbad could gather for a tribal celebration! Dancing to the rhythm of bongo drums, shaking our bodies around the burning mound of aviary carcasses. Someone would have invited Shakira, and party goes on as we swing to her ‘wakas’ and ‘ayes’.
That might be a little farfetched.
What’s not farfetched, however, is the seagull invasion being a thing of the past. People, know to clean up for themselves; doing it seems to be the hard part. But if we can start with one person, another will more likely remember. I’ll be that one – how about you be two?
