Looks Can Be Deceiving

One of the first lessons we were all taught as children is that you should never judge a book by its cover. For a lot of obvious reasons this is a very good thing for kids to hear from an early age - people come in all shapes and sizes and if you assume something about a person based on appearance alone you are doing the whole world a disservice. Not only are you closing a door on a person who could surprise you if given the opportunity, but there is no telling how they could improve your life as well. Still, if you are honest with yourself than you probably know that rule can also be one of the hardest to follow. I have been guilty of this in the past and no matter how often I remind myself not to do it, occasionally a few judgmental thoughts manage to slip through the filter. For example, I know there is a chance the guy in the mullet with no shirt on and a beer in his hand screaming obscenities at passing cars actually has a day job as a rocket scientist, but I wouldn't bet money on it. The problem is that when those first impressions are so often proven to be correct it becomes natural for people to assume they will always be correct, which leads to entire swaths of people being treated differently because of how they look. It is also why I am becoming slightly concerned that I may look like an idiot.

This weekend I needed to run some trash which was too big for my bins up to the local dump. It was nothing spectacular - mostly cardboard from the box containing a new storage shed for down at the beach house and a few over-sized bamboo shades, also from the beach house. When I pulled in and met the attendant he informed me that the shades could go into the first dumpster, but the cardboard would have to go into the recycling big at the other end of the yard. Not a problem. If I have learned anything during various home renovation projects it is that you should never mix garbage because the people who work there take it very seriously. So, I had stopped at the first bin and was throwing the shades away when a piece of packing tape from the cardboard box wrapped itself around one of the shades and in pulling the shade out of the truck I brought a chunk of cardboard with it. I was pausing to separate the two when a man in a front end loader pulled up and yelled down to me that the cardboard wasn't allowed in that particular bin, frankly with a little more attitude in his voice than was necessary for the situation. It is one thing to take pride in your work, but it was not like I was throwing it in his personal garbage bin. I thought about responding that I knew that and was trying to separate the two but decided to just nod and continue doing what I was doing because I didn't feel like yelling over the engine of his machine. Instead I tossed the shades away and drove to the other end of the yard to dispose of the cardboard.

Slightly annoyed at being scolded when I wasn't doing anything wrong I pulled up to the recycling bin and began tossing the scraps into the dumpster. This was when a third worker drove passed and reminded me that I couldn't throw any packing material in there because the bin was for cardboard only. At this point I was fuming because I get really annoyed at having people repeat things at me when I heard them the first time as well as being yelled before I have even had the chance to do anything wrong. On top of that I was even more annoyed because the cardboard had gotten wet and was disintegrating in my hand so when I told this guy I already knew that, admittedly, I probably threw him a little more attitude than he was expecting out of the exchange. (Paying the attitude forward, as it were.) That is why I was not surprised that he sat in his truck and watched me like a hawk as I folded and compressed the cardboard before I threw it in the bin so as to not take up much room. There wouldn't be any packing material in that bin - not on that guy's watch. Adding to the absurdity of the situation was the fact that sitting smack dab in the middle of this 'cardboard only' bin was a completely-intact VCR. I guess they aren't always so vigilant about watching what goes in this bin, proving the issue was with me.

This is hardly the first time this has happened. Even though I think I pick up on how things should be done very quickly, apparently no one else shares that faith because I throughout my life I have constantly had people repeating instructions to me before I have the chance to screw them up. I guess they may just be trying to be helpful, but more often it just feels like they are insulting my intelligence. Thus, I can only conclude that most people think I look like an idiot who need constant supervision to stop me from messing up their system. (While this is not desirable, I guess it is better than the alternative, which is thinking I look like the kind of asshole who does what he wants because the rules don't apply to him.) Even worse, there really isn't much I can do about it because short of surgery I don't know of any way to change my face. And even if surgery was an option I don't know how you would alter your appearance to make yourself look smarter. I've heard that a lot of NBA stars wear fake glasses because they believe glasses make you look more intelligent but I actually kind of need my glasses to be real so I can, you know, see. When the glass in your glasses has to be real that tends to cut down on the number of vanity pairs you own. Besides, Albert Einstein is generally considered to be one of the smartest human ever and he didn't wear glasses. I guess it is just a good thing the people who tested his theories didn't hold that against him.