Plankton, Potatoes and Plastic Oh My!

I'm creating monsters. First there was the Muse telling a friend she couldn't order the farmed salmon. Now it's the Blond telling everyone they should be using cotton and mesh produce bags instead of plastic. She can actually quote the ratio of plankton to plastic in the Pacific gyre from nearly two weeks ago at the talk by the couple from the Algarita Marine Research Center. (My jaw dropped.)

I work at being subtle about these things. I smile, breathe, laugh. Turn blue. Start again. I share stories, provide information, refer to experience. These ladies armed with information, "Education works," the Blond said, are slamming down the law though. They get away with saying words like can't and should. Words I step back from.

The Blond took her new cotton produce bags to a shopping center farmers' market today and called me tonight. "I asked the guy selling the potatoes what kind they were. He couldn't tell me." Had she been standing up instead of in her car she would have been kicking dirt. "Do you know who runs that market?" she asked.

I didn't laugh out loud or miss a single beat. "No one," I told her. "It's a shopping mall. Think about it." But I wanted to jump up and down that she suddenly cared about the variety of food she was buying.

"I think they're selling food from the grocery store," she continued.

I did laugh then though, because she cared about where her food came from. I've been talking about local food until I'm orange and violet, sienna and cotton candy in the face and it never phased her. But put enough plastic in the ocean that it outnumbers the plankton and where her potatoes come from becomes an issue.

I don't understand how that connection works exactly but I'm glad it does. And really everything is connected. Right?