What an arrogant prick I am!

Today while I was hurting my arm twisting it up to pat myself on the back, for once again I graciously allowed a man to take my basket full of empty bottle returns, as I have for the last month that it accrued to me…. I am an arrogant prick!

See, over the last month I have been giving my returns to a fellow that picks up the scattered bottles in the parking lot behind our building. I’ve affectionately nicknamed him “Bottles”. So once a week or so I yell out the window “Hey Bottles, got some for you! He smiles and waves back and will yell up “Thanks”.

Today as we were doing the bottle exchange and we got to talking, the normal stuff, the weather and how hot it’s been. He tells me he hasn’t been out much lately cause the heat wears him out. He’s an older man, well he appears older. You can see that time has not been kind to him but you can also always see him smiling.

We said our goodbyes and as he walked away I said “See you next week Bottles” he turned and smiled, not waving because I had loaded him down with heavy bottles, I then turned to return to my nice air condition apartment. That’s when it hit me. Here’s a man willing to humble himself walking the back alleys and picking up the trash others discard with thoughtless intent. A man that isn’t panhandling, isn’t stealing, isn’t causing trouble but just trying to get along. Who am I to give this man the label “Bottles”?

Sometimes I listen to my couscous and doing so I turned and quick stepped to catch up with him. “Sir” I called out. He turned to me, I reached out and grasped the bag of bottles from his right hand, “My name is Stephen, what’s yours?” We shook hands. “Bradley.” he said. I said; “Well Bradley, I just want to thank you for picking up around here. What you do is a real service to our community.” He looked into my eyes a little stunned but then put on his big friendly smile and said; “Stephen, thank you and nice to meet you, you have a good day and I’ll see you next week”. We parted till our next meeting in a week or so. When I see him then, I’ll be looking at him with greater humbleness in my eyes.

Crap, I got to go, now I got something in my eye and I need to find a quit place to go wipe it away and to think about what just happened.