just-- let-- it-- GO, man!

Of the two concierges who man the front office of our dorm, one is old, friendly, and goofy; the other, unfortunately, is a weird, obsessive asshole. He doesn't normally bother me, but his public fixation with garbage, and how to dispose of it, occasionally gets under my skin.

On my way to meet a friend for an early dinner this afternoon, the concierge adjoshi stopped me just so he could rant about garbage and the neighborhood cats. At first I thought he was telling me-- as he's done in the past-- that I needed to do something about my own garbage, but no: it turned out he was telling me war stories about how he now puts all the organic garbage inside heavy plastic trash cans to keep the cats out, and how he has to cart that garbage to the local dong-samuso (a sort of local district office) to dispose of it. "And I was doing this on my days off!" he said.

I wasn't sure what his point was. Was I supposed to congratulate him? All I knew was that I was late to meet my buddy, and that I was once again being forced to listen to a garbage-related tirade.

The lesson for today: depending on the nature of our jobs and habits, our personal worlds can range in scope from expansive to constricted. For this particular concierge, who spends his days in a cramped, first-floor office with a tiny TV, life is mainly about the goings-on of us dorm tenants, the nasty habits of cats, and finally, about the plastic-wrapped garbage that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.


_