22 August 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 2

On Recycling – Subjects Covered: Trees, Graffiti, & Life Plans

by MICHELLE MENTING

The etching on the stall door said "I want to suck your kneecap!!"

There were exclamation points behind kneecap. The writing was in drunken cursive or 5th-grader cursive or drunken 5th-grader cursive. It was difficult to decipher.

I looked down at my knees, bent and peaking out of my khaki shorts. They were grubby and the skin was peeling in half-moon shapes.

—

I was three hours outside Portland, Oregon. Late summer.

What was I doing here?

The heat was suffocating and the bathroom in need of a thorough Mr. Clean-cleaning. I stood, pulled up my khakis, and flushed. I walked over to a sink lined with damp paper towels, scattered like some abandoned papier-mâché job. The towel dispenser was empty. To the left of the sink on the wall was the demand—in less crude but still sloppy cursive—"Save your environment! Paper towels produce waste and cannot be recycled. Use air blowers! A fast, efficient way to dry and helps reduce the occurrence of disease." I pressed the button. The machine gagged, choked and died.

—

I waved my hands, spraying droplets of water into the air. The wet seemed to float, to slowly melt back into humidity. The restroom door then opened a space of two feet, letting in the petite woman wearing a dull maroon jumper over an antacid-pink blouse. She began gingerly picking up the wet paper towels previously smothering the sink. She then turned towards me and produced two soft, white, creased tissues from her smock pocket. I nodded and accepted the tissues. She nodded back and then went to the wall on the left of the sink and smoothed out the "Save your environment!" posting. She pressed down on the taped corners. She looked over her shoulder at me as she did this. She said nothing. I realized I was staring. And she was staring. At my t-shirt. Across my chest printed in forest green over the solid olive-green fabric was the word Treehugger.

—

My Treehugger t-shirt was a gift from a few years ago—gifted from a boy who was almost my boyfriend, but we argued about communism, and then he was no longer even my friend. He later sent me the shirt as a peace offering or apology. He miscalculated the postage. I ended up paying $2.10 for the shirt. Shortly after I received the shirt in the mail, he sent me one of those eco-email postcards from the Sierra Club or Nature Conservancy. Something about have a happy Earth Day. The only personalized part of the card was his brief note in Garamond font, "I hope the shirt fits. It sure is fitting. A person can hug, but the tree can't hug back. The problem was I couldn't only hug trees." I thought the problem was communism. His email card didn't make sense. And the fuckin' t-shirt cost me $2.10.

—

Should I talk to the petite bathroom attendant woman in the Pepto-Bismol blouse? It might have been the humidity, but surely we stared at one another for a good 30 seconds. That qualifies as a stare down. It at least begs for an introduction, a greeting, a crummy-weather-we're-having, or you know what I appreciate about Oregon? They ticket you for driving slowly in the fast lane. Amen and thank-the-goddess, I hate slow bastards in the fast lane. Instead none of this chit-chat was necessary (and none of it would have come out of my mouth anyway. I think this way, but I don't talk this way. Some sort of Walter Mitty affliction, I think). It wasn't necessary because pink antacid blouse broke her stare and then sweetly chuckled. She had the voice of a twelve year old when she asked, You're lost, aren't you?

—

I arrived in