When I poured the half and half into my latte on the counter I noticed the garbage can was full. I told one of the people behind the counter. “Excuse me. The garbage can is full.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Then I sat by the window in the coffee shop and read The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith for two hours. Behind the counter were five employees. No one emptied the garbage can and put in a new garbage bag.
One my way out I said, “Excuse me the garbage can is full.” They looked away and wouldn’t make eye contact. One employee said, “We shoved it down.”
Five people behind the counter, laughing, and talking. There was no line. No pressing reason to leave a garbage can full.
A full garbage can in a coffee shop is like a great novel that was never proof-read. Their instead of there, butiful instead of beautiful.
The little details of life are important
A garden with prize winning roses, but no one weeded. A designer gown, but the basting threads were never pulled out. A person with a beautiful voice but they never brushed their teeth.
Empty the garbage. Proof-read your novel, weed your garden, pull the basting threads, brush your teeth.
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
Arthur Conan Doyle
It is the little things that people remember. The details. And if the author of Sherlock Holmes thinks that the little things are the most important, then there must be some value in my premise. I wonder why Sherlock Holmes would have thought of the full garbage can?
I don’t know why they didn’t empty the trash in the coffee shop, maybe they would rather be the star making coffee than the support person emptying the trash?
Some one has to sing the National Anthem and someone has to empty the trash.
————————–
Are you the star making coffee or the person emptying the trash? As always I would love to chat with you. Click here to comment. click here