A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to The Parthenon!

Knowing that I was being paid handsomely by the Town of Carrboro to search out the little things about Greece that we could bring back to Carrrboro, my every step was followed by a critical eye. On this particular sun-drenched day, pushing my daughter in her stroller, I walked past a flower planter. Actually, now that I think about it(and am looking at the photo which luckily I took), there were three planters. One only had 3 sides while the other two had the standard four sides.

I admired the plant, which resembled a little olive tree, but was most likely an oversized weed and continued walking past he planters. I saw the 3 sided one and thought that maybe it was being readied for a little cactus display and there was no need for it to hold water. Then I came to the third one... it had what appeared to be the strangest flower arrangement.... very colorful, but somewhat artificial looking. I moved closer to it and quickly realized that it was not full of plants....but instead garbage.

"Hmm," I thought to myself. "A planter full of garbge. What an odd thing to plant in a planter" Having just shared a bottle of wine with my wife, I was unable to control my mind, so I gave it free reign to wonder..

It somehow became fixated on the planter with garbage, but for some reason I couldn't figure out why. What's so strange about a planter full of garbage? Nothing really except.... except..... except this seems like a deja vu.... wasn't I involved in a planter/garbage story at some point?

And then it struck me like a ton of bricks. Of course.... Carrboro had a minor revolution over the definition of a flower pot and I had been the lucky reporter to cover it. It seemed that nobody could agree on what you would consider a flowerpot and what you consider garbage.

I looked down at the little planter full of garbage and wondered how Carrboro would respond to that. The Town seemed relatively certain that a psychodelic painted truck with flowers in the back was garbage, but if the same person took a flowerpot and put garbage in it(or evena garbage truck).... then what? Well, that may be stretching it, but how about if they lined the planters with garbage along their front lawn. Is a garden accessessory considered garbage if it is a carrier of garbage or is the vessel the determiner of whether or not the display is considered garbage? Which would most likely be considered garbage and worthy of a fine if not removed? a vessel holding garbage or a garbage holding a vessel? That is the question!

After a brief meditation I decided that Carrboro would probably levy a fine on anyone who had the planter with the garbage in their yard, but then the question was... Would Athens levy a fine?

I decided to investigate and carefully removed the layers of garbage as I put my amateur forensic science education to work. I was hoping there would be some clue that would help me date the age of the garbage. It was looking pretty bleak when I saw a bit of a newspaper. I grabbed it and searched for something that would help determine the age of the paper and when it could possibly have been put there. I started going through the paper mentally to try to think of something in it that could help me date it. The comics?.... The help ads?.... The headlines?.....some advertisements?.... naw, none of those, but there must be something.....of course, why didn't I think of that.... The date on the paper... that certainly would give me a pretty good idea of when the paper was produced!

Since it was a gloppy mass of soggy, magot infested paper, I had to carefully work my way to a part that would have a date. After a little fumbling I found it. Sept 15, 2006..... Ah, a relatively modern little pile of garbage- that's just my luck!

Now that I had a date all I had to do was go to the internet and do a search on planters and garbage in Athens. After an extensive search I could not find a single article where the Athenian Community was up in arms because someone had put garbage in a flower planter, or flowers in a garbage bin or anything to do with flowers and garbage and flower pots for that matter.

I suppose they have better things to do in the big cities than to debate what makes a flower planter a flower planter and what makes a garbage a garbage...... but maybe not..... maybe the question was thoroughly examined by Socrates and Plato 2500 years ago...

I may have to research that...