PLASTIC CONTAINERS

They're piling up again,
those plastic containers.
You know,
the ones that come with potato salad,
or cole slaw,
or rice pudding,
or restaurant deliveries.
Friends sometimes bring food in them
and rarely remember to take them back.
Some of them are so well constructed,
and so irresistibly handy,
it seems immoral to throw them out.
So you wash them
and tuck them neatly inside one another
to be used the next time you have leftovers.
When I moved out of my old apartment,
I discovered stashes of them,
unused and yellowing,
and got up the courage to throw them out.
A fresh start!
And though I'm not a
Tupperware-party sort of person,
I went out and bought a matched set
of brand-name containers
with pretty blue lids.
But old habits die hard,
particularly frugal
(and environmentally friendly) ones.
One year into my new apartment,
my cabinets are bulging with plastic again.
They are all going down
to my basement today.
With full knowledge that tomorrow,
I will have a leftover that would have fit perfectly
in one of those pint-size soup containers
now awaiting its fate
in the recycling bin.


© Ellen Azorin