Verbaling for the environment

So, last Thursday I did something I never thought I would do: I verbaled someone. If you don't know what verbaling is, let me enlighten you. To put it simply the act of verbaling involves yelling at someone from your car as you are driving by ensuring that you are free of reprisal from the person you just yelled at. (I first learned about verbaling from my husband. It appears to be something that college-aged men do rather frequently).

So, who and why did I verbal. I would peg the man to be about 45, single, maybe a computer programmer? On second thought I am going with a government employee. He had just left Target and, lo and behold, in the bottom portion of his cart sat a twelve-pack of bottled water. Before I could stop myself I yelled at him out the window that he was being ripped off by Coke (he had a thing of Dasani) and was the poster boy for lack of environmental awareness in this country. (My husband, at least, wasn't so horrified by my outburst - all the college verbaling he did, I guess - but he did tell me I had bad eye sight because the guy obviously had bought Aquafina and not Dasani).

So, why did I have my little meltdown in the parking lot of the Fairfax Target? Well, because I am fed up with all the bottled-water buying people do. I mean, lets be real, we all are guilting of buying the stuff but these days we have so many more options (think aluminum water bottles that you can fill up with tap water). We Americans have the BEST drinking water in the world and it is literally free and piped into our homes and we insist on turning around and buying that same tap water from Coke or Pepsi. (Yes, some bottled water does come from underground aquifers but a lot of it is just tap water sold back to you at an exorbitant price). And, on top of this, we then litter our planet with plastic bottles after we are done drinking our tap water that Coke just sold to us even though we can get it ourselves for virtually nothing. Who doesn't see plastic water bottles strewn about everywhere when out on a walk these days?

So, I apologize to the random man I harassed in the Target parking lot, but maybe what we need more of in this country is some environmental verbaling to change our behavior.

Would you like your tomato with or without chemicals?

It seems that organic farming is coming to a college near you. There are now over a dozen colleges that offer degrees in sustainable/organic agriculture.

I am trying to do a better job of buying locally-grown produce. Growing up, my grandmother in Mississippi had a farm and so each summer we would load down my dad's 83 Chevy impala with fresh vegetables destined for my mother's deep-freezer. My grandmother passed away over ten years and since that time I have been struggling to find another way to ensure that I have fresh, locally-farmed vegetables to consume all winter long.

I shop at Wegmans and have found that they do a pretty-good job of making available a selection of produce from MD and VA. I have even started to buy organic but, as with most people, I sure can tell a difference in price. Strawberries are a prime example of this: this is a fruit that should be purchased organically but have you noticed how much organic strawberries cost????? $5.99 per lb. versus $4.99. In actuality a dollar difference isn't that big of a deal but  people don't have a lot of money to spend these days and my fear is that organic, sustainably grown produce is going to become a province of the rich.

My only hope I have decided is to convince my husband to move to a farm in Loundon County, VA and grown our own food. Except, I don't like country living. What I need is a friend/family member that does and can grow me sustainable/organic food out of the kindness of their heart.