Last night, while walking Evie, we tried to be helpful with a woman collecting cardboard.
Usually, it is older people doing this for extra income.
Here's the surprising part: We tried to put a box into the cart of the woman.
— Hey, don't put it there!"
(I'm guessing that's what she said in Cantonese 🤣).
We tried to explain:
It's a box. It's cardboard."
But it didn't change her mind. She started shouting louder, something like:
— Don't put nothing… or I don't want it!!"
What the hell? (Maybe more agressive that I imagine)...We ended up throwing it into the public recycling bin instead. It was paradoxical and unexplained.
How do they think?
I remembered another day when I put a small plastic bag with some boardcard in her cart, and she screamed at me then, too. That day, I was sure she didn't want any kind of garbage in her cart, only cardboard.
But last night, she didn't want the cardboard either.
What to do? Sometimes it feels like the world is inverted.
(Written on march 3 2026).