My oldest son, Logan, who is eight, bestowed an unusual honor on me and my husband yesterday.
He was watching the recycling truck come through our street, mainly because as a very serious Type A child, he was afraid that they wouldn’t take our Christmas tree, which was lying next to the blue plastic box holding all of our recyclables.

“Mom,” he suddenly said, thoughtfully. “I bet the recycling guys really like you and Dad.”

I immediately knew where this was going. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure it out, especially since just a few minutes before, I’d actually had the exact opposite thought as I’d walked past the recycling box on the way to the mailbox.  But I was amused anyway, so I humored the little guy.

“Oh yeah?” I said. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, because you guys have more stuff in the box than any of our neighbors! That makes the recycling people happy, right?”

By now the truck had come to a screeching halt right in front of our house and the clink clink clinkingof glass had begun to ring out, echoing through the neighborhood. The boy is right. Wow, listen to all that clinking glass. Again and again. Just from our box. Yes, definately we are doing our part for the environment alright. That is a very good way of looking at it.

“And when we talk about recycling at school, I always tell about our box having the most bottles.” Oh, you tell that to your teacher, do you? I’ll never look her in the eye again.

“So do you think that the recycling guys will come here someday and give you a trophy for having the most to recycle?” He’d seen something similar happen to a family while watching The Weather Channel once.

“It is indeed very possible that they might do just that,” I reply.  I can think of several other, um, awards that they might have for us. And if they’re ever thirsty and it’s near quitting time, I’m quite sure they know where to go, as well.

And hey, they took our tree, too! The greenest family in town, that is us.

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