My friend Crystal has a compulsion; she folds her trash before throwing it away. It was during lunch a few months ago when I first noticed it. She was done with her meal and very meticulously, and with a quiet reverence in a kind of ceremony, she would fold what ever food wrapper she had just used. Tin foil was flattened and pressed like a crisp, clean shirt, candy bar wrappers were folded over and over all neat and tidy. Only then was it ready to be thrown away. This continued each and every time we had lunch; it was her lunch ritual.
Of course, being a good friend, I called her on it. Yes, I laughed at her as well! I would also, from time to time, reach over and crush up her perfect little trash origami. She would sigh, say something sarcastic and start all over again returning her trash to its perfect pre-disposal form.
As April 1 approached my other lunch buddy, Clark, and I starting planning. At first we thought about filling Crystal's cubicle with packing peanuts. But I had a better idea. Instead of the peanuts the image of her desk covered with crinkled and crumpled food wrappers was a divine inspiration.
We had three weeks and set right to work. Each little snack wrapper went into an empty desk drawer. Clark even sent an email to his sales team sating he was collecting food wrappers as part of his son's class project. He would then send these wrappers to me by interoffice mail. Each time I had one of the stuffed envelopes I would laugh; the image of this envelope stuffed with crinkling plastic and foil wrappers being shuffled around the building with other important business paperwork was priceless. It was if the entire company was helping out with the gag.
And here's what we ended up with.
I had set this up the night before which allowed most of the night crew to stop by, laugh and take their own photos. The next morning I waited in the row next to her desk waiting for her arrival.
"I can't believe this! Oh, my God!"
Followed quickly by, "I'm going to kill you!"
1 comment:
i laughed really hard at the idea of sending trash through inter-office mail. something truly ironic about that.
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