Bag of Trash

It’s not the bag of trash pictured above, it’s more like a CVS bag filled with fountain drinks and Taco Bell wrappers.  It’s not outside an apartment building either, or an alley.  It’s on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to my apartment, and when I got home from a week in NYC last Friday, it was the first thing to greet me.  It also said goodbye to me when I left for work this morning.  How it got there? I don’t know.  Why has it remained there for at least a week?  That answer is also beyond me, but it’s a very interesting one to think about.  My social psychology background prevents me from picking it up, as I’m curious as to how long it will remain, and why nobody in the building is willing to simply pick it up and throw it away.  Not only has everyone in the building walked passed this bag of trash at least twice a day, at least one of them is responsilbe for leaving it there. It’s just one bag of trash, but from which we can learn so much.  People have a hard enough time cleaning up their own messes, and this small bag proves that we aren’t fond of cleaning up the messes of others.  Even if it is just one small bag of trash.