If there is a Smug recycling contraption somewhere in the world, where do you, my Smug readers, think it could possibly be? Take this test:
- A. Switzerland, which has the highest rate of recycling worldwide
- B. San Francisco, which has the most comprehensive recycling program in the U.S.
- C. Los Angeles, which offers full recycling and composting at area farmers’ markets
- D. Portsmouth, which is in the state of New Hampshire
You will be astonished to find out that the winner is D, Portsmouth. Enough with the Portsmouth mania, you non-Portsmouth residents may be crying out. Too bad Portsmouth routinely outdoes all other epicenters in virtually any Smugness competition. Smug Scout simply cannot ignore the fact that Portsmouth all but invented Smug Scout.
And now Portsmouth has this new bossy and redundant recycling contraption. Smug Scout is fascinated that it not only tells you what to do, it also repeats that same information as what not to do. For example, the left side is for “No Trash” but the right side is for “Trash.” Similarly, the left side demands “Cans” which the right side rejects: “No Cans.” This redundancy is moron-friendly. In essence, a moron only needs to read one set of instructions to operate the contraption accurately, but if he/she is too befuddled, the other set gives the same instructions negated, so the chance of accurate placement of disposed items increases. What a Smug and savvy system, Portsmouth!
The other aspect Smug Scout loves is the implicit dire warning involved in the sign on the right: “Landfill.” For Smug people, “landfill” may as well mean “nuclear waste dump site.” For Smug Portsmouth residents, it may also mean “Turnkey Landfill,” which is a grotesquely large fetid stinking mass of a garbage dump in the nearby town of Rochester. Smug Scout only knows about this because a Smug Portsmouth Bartender friend took her there as part of an extensive tour of his hometown and its environs. He thought it would be funny for Smug Scout to be utterly disgusted. Smug Scout was actually more disgusted by the anti-Smug restaurant he brought her to afterwards, but she digresses.
In short, you do not want to need the “Landfill” side. You do not want to buy anything you have to dispose of there. You do not want that self-righteous judgment from spying Smug bystanders. If you cannot finish, for example, that revolting pasty, gummy, flavorless, vicious-insult-to- the-New-England-tradition clam chowder from, for example, New Hampshire’s worst restaurant (could it be in…Rochester?), you would be better off dumping it in the toilet and renaming it “puke.” After all, in an eco-obsessed Smug context, “threw it up” is somehow less egregious than “threw it out.”