Rejected By a Green Group

When Crabby Old Lady gets over having her feelings hurt, she’ll undoubtedly be angry.

Crabby does what she can to keep her carbon footprint on planet Earth as small as possible. She has done so for many years. She diligently sorts and recycles trash, she always washes clothes in cold water and does so in the evening during off-peak power hours. She doesn’t run the dishwasher until it is packed to capacity. She uses green cleaning products when they work. (Seventh Generation brand paper towels are worse than useless; they just move the mess around without absorbing a drop of it.)

She takes time to recycle printer ink cartridges and batteries, careful to deliver them to drop off places during other necessary driving trips so she's not wasting gas. She dutifully takes yard waste, left-over paint and other non-recyclables to the town dump, and she has installed those funny-looking light bulbs in every socket and lamp even though florescent light at home is as ugly and unappealing as it is in offices.

She is mildly maniacal about turning off lights in empty rooms. She also uses ceiling fans instead of air conditioners, and last year, she spent a small fortune having 14 energy-efficient windows installed in her home. (They are actually saving a little money on heating fuel this winter.)

Crabby also contributes to organizations she believes are helping the planet on a larger scale than she can do alone, particularly The Nature Conservancy. When the time comes for a new car, she will sadly give up “cute” for whatever fuel-efficient vehicle she can afford because it is the right thing to do. If Crabby could find a way to dispose of cat box droppings in something other than plastic bags, she would do it. But at least she doesn’t buy the bags; she reuses what she gets at stores.

Crabby is always looking for new, small ways she can help, so she perked up when she read about Freecycle – a network of local organizations which, according to the website,

“…is made up of 4,251 groups with 4,518,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free.”

It works like this: when you have reusable stuff you don’t want anymore, you can list it on the pages of your local group where other members can peruse and choose. And, you can find stuff you might want. No one is allowed to charge for items or to pay for them. Everything is free.

Thinking that Freecycle is a remarkably good idea, Crabby Old Lady found the Portland, Maine, group where she applied for membership by filling in the form and waited. On Tuesday morning, she received this message in her inbox:

“Your request to join the freecyclePortlandME group was not approved.

“The moderator of each Yahoo! group chooses whether to restrict membership in the group. Moderators who choose to restrict membership also choose whom to admit.

“Please note that this decision is final...”

"Them's good people" indeed. Crabby is at a loss to understand on what basis she has been rejected. The only questions asked on the signup form were her name, email address and why she wanted to join. Duh! (which, she assures you, is not what she answered.) Not much to go on in regard to rejecting someone.

Having recently been banned by Google AdSense too, Crabby Old Lady is wondering if she smells bad these days and should shower more than once a day.

[At The Elder Storytelling Place today, David Wolfe recalls a moment of youthful revelation in A Teen's Discovery of Humility.]