The Core Problem

I have a confession to make. I throw apple cores out the truck window, into the ditch by the side of the road.

But I am emphatically not a "litterbug" as they used to say in the 60s. I am almost anal about not littering. You know the little paper wads you get when you take one Breathsaver out of the roll? I do not toss that on the sidewalk.

But somewhere along the line I decided that an apple core would decompose quickly, so it was okay to pitch. Not a banana peel - too big, too messy. Not fast food waste. But an apple core, sure. With a modicum of guilt. And not if anyone is watching. Hmmm.

Now, none of us is gonna dump a bag of rotten apples by the side of the road. But nobody will complain if I spit an apple seed out the window. One's definitely okay. The other is definitely out.

But where do you draw the line? Where falls the apple core?

Even more, there's "core" issues in my life that I never really decided where to draw the line, I just do what I do.

* When I download content, is it stealing, or is it just taking what's out there?
* When I pass along "news" about a friend, is it conversation, or is it gossip?
* When I overlook a wrong, am I choosing my battles, or avoiding confrontation?

That's just things I've run into this week. The extremes are black and white, the big space in the middle is shades of gray.

So I'm back to the question I asked myself about the apple core: What if everybody did it the way I do?