Recycling Karma

The other night I came home to find my recycling bin gone. I pondered the probability that someone had stolen it. My better angel thought...."It had been windy, I had placed it on the curb for pick-up in the morning, it is probably somewhere around the 'hood." I am getting better at being less paranoid.

However, I do live in Columbia, in the land of not plenty, where it is conceivable that someone would covet my sweet recycling bin. It is like super-sized. Yet even here, I thought it not likely to be pilfered. Except by a thief with low self-esteem. Stealer of garbage cans and ilk.

I was tired, it was late. I had just been at work for over 14 hours. No mood for an Easter Egg Hunt. Small problems at the wrong time can have an exponential effect considering the context.

I proceeded to walk around. I came across a stray bin strewn in the street. "Come home Lassie" I thought. Alas, it has a number on it of 144 which is my neighbor across the street. I was briefly tempted to abscond with my neighbor's bin in some kind of cosmic recycling chain of being karma. My conscience kicked in and I did not sin. I left that bin where it was and resumed my search. No luck finding 143. Then my conscience kicked in again, I resolved that I should at least return the missing 144 bin to its owner.

As I approached my neighbor's townhouse, I spotted that there was another recycling bin in front of the house. Now, the Dick Tracy in me began to percolate like a coffee pot. Maybe that is my bin and they have mistakenly snatched mine in error. I checked to see if the tell-tale duct tape was on the side of the other bin. Yes, it was mine. I deftly transferred the milk carton plastic gallon container and went my way, hoping that my neighbor wasn't loading shells into his shotgun to teach me a lesson for messing with his bin.

I could have stolen his bin because mine was gone. But, that might have set off a reaction of mistrust in the neighborhood. He took my bin, presumably not knowing. I snatched his knowingly. The number was hard to miss, my duct tape hardly pointed the bin to me (it is my internal check). My sin would have been greater.

By presuming the best, I had resolved the issue. The moral of the recycling bin: What goes around, come around. Recycling Karma. For the record, I believe in intra-life Karma, what a man sows, he reaps deal. Not multiple lives nonsense. It is appointed once for a man to live and then the judgment.