I consider myself to be an ethical person, in that I try to rationally consider the many possible repercussions of my actions. Or make impulse decisions and later justify them with business ethics. Generally, recycling is a big part of that. I don't usually like to let things go to waste when they could be used or repurposed in some positive manner. But is it ethical to give away something you know no one else should have? You know, like Ukraine saying, "naw, you go ahead, China, we weren't really using that warship anyway."
I was going through the long-abandoned depths of my closet yesterday looking for clothes to donate to the thrift store when I found a near decade-old collection of Hawaiian shirts. And that was when the ethical automaton in my brain returned a grinding "does not compute:" not in re-encountering the fact that I had at one time purchased these items; I was young and naive and avoided mirrors. Business ethics. No, my problem is that I'm not so sure it's right to keep Hawaiian shirts in circulation.
Sure, someone could use them. Could. But I wouldn't give an aging red-head henna hair dye, just as I wouldn't give a homeless person the Bitter Melon I bought at the Asian market (on sale; business ethics), because that would imply that bitter Melon is a food, and I happen to think honesty is a virtue, and the truth is: Bitter Melon tastes like ass. I would rather eat pizza from a garbage can, or a stick dipped in ranch.
Maybe it's best to at least make possible the opportunity for mistakes. Sometimes people need to learn things the hard way. College-town liquor stores happily release droves of Keystone and Mr. Boston upon the pre-traumatic public. But I also know that Hawaiian shirts can be a gateway into areas of the human experience that one would be wise to avoid. True, there was the time that I decided to kick heroin, and, not wanting to let a good thing go to waste (it was that good good too), dropped the remainder of my stash off at the local Boys and Girls club. But that was different. I was legally insane at the time. Business ethics.
There is a time and a place for Hawaiian shirts, and it's not this decade in an impoverished Georgia town. Who knows, maybe they'll come back into style. Maybe if I keep it long enough my son will inherit a vintage Hawaiian shirt just when they're at the height of fashion and his peers will consider him the "Overlord's Twitter" or whatever the kids'll say in those days. And I'll think to myself, "I am the proud father of a fourteen year old young man on the road to success... God that kid looks like a douchebag."
I'm beginning to think I should instead donate the shirts to a local theater, for use in the costume department. Then I could write a play about how four middle-aged lesbians meet a tragically young-at-heart jazz-fusion apologist at a James Taylor tribute concert on the beach of Half Moon Bay and mistake him for one of their own. Hilarity ensues as they maneuver through the horrors of their time and grapple with personal demons. But the play ends on a crucial question, as the audience doesn't get to see what they do with their shirts at the end!
I spent so long deliberating on this today that, by the time I had shamefacedly made up my mind to turn it into someone else's problem, the thrift store had closed. Great. Now I'm all worried about what would happen if I got pulled over and the cops searched my trunk.
In other news, I'm thinking of having a bonfire tonight, but I would understand if only my closest friends showed up.
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