I know I should not start out a blog post with a negative title like this, but I feel compelled to do it. I took my poodle for a walk this morning, as I always do, and we walked down an alley. Here’s what I saw:

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So sad – someone had this hideous, smelly  couch in his house

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Lonely beat up chair with moldy cushion and side table missing a drawer

This discovery made think about things that instantly make me sad, even when I am in a perfectly happy state of mind:

  1. Discarded Ugly Furniture – There’s just something depressing about it. I suppose it is partly that the people living inside the house lived with the ugly, dismal stuff in the first place. With it lying there in disrepair, I am forced to conjure up images of family members sitting on that furniture for many years. Then perhaps there’s an element of sadness due to the pathetic abandonment the furniture appears to be experiencing out in the alley, awaiting a pick-up to its final destination (As if the furniture had feelings.)
  2. Drug Commercials on TV – Every time I see a commercial for depression  drugs, I get totally depressed. And at the end when the side effects are listed, I go into a deeper funk. Okay. So I am supposed to take this drug to help me with depression, but I am more likely to commit suicide if I take this drug, than if I don’t. Yet I am taking this drug because I am already depressed. You see, it never ends. And it is indeed depressing. So in a nutshell, the ad is working, because it is making me need the drug. The good news: I have learned to change the channel the second the ads comes on.
  3. Stacks of Beer or Liquor Bottles in Recycling Bins – Excessive drinkers – especially those with kids at home – depress me. I am shocked when I walk by a house with a recycling bin containing dozens of beer bottles after just one week. And week after week there are stacks and stacks of beer bottles in that family’s recycling bin. Bummer. And I have to wonder how the drinker must be feeling when he/she wakes up every morning. All that intestinal gas from the brew. Awful!
  4. Abandoned Shopping Carts – When I see a grocery cart in a part of town, far away from the store from which it came, I can’t help but feel sad. It just seems so cruel. And if it is banged up and abused, that puts it in the category of “complete despair.” There’s even a website to stop the abandonment and abuse of shopping carts. Check it out. But you’ve been warned: it will make you sad.
  5. Outdated Political Bumper Stickers – I recently saw a beat up, old car with a very washed out bumper sticker that read “Mondale for President.” How depressing is that? He was nominated and ran for that office in 1984. Why can’t people take off their old political bumper stickers after elections are over? These are the same people who attach Christmas wreaths or bows to the front of their cars and fail to remove them even long after the holidays are over. It’s July 4th and a lady is driving all over town with a filthy red bow on her car. All she has to do is walk up to the front of her car, untie the bow and take it off. But day after day, month after month, she fails to do it.  That is way too depressing for me to even think about.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s list of things that make me instantly happy. (Thank God!)

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