I must be having those once in a blue moon, panties-in-a-bunch moods coz I just have this other thing in mind which SO makes me want to talk about another reason why I think *SOME* Malaysians are shallow minded or maybe just plain stupid. Ignorance is NOT bliss all the time – trust me on this.

Scenario:
Beautiful day, sun shinning and you feel like you’re one with nature. All around you, you see beautiful green vegetation and can clearly hear the calming sounds water breaking on the rocks in a nearby waterfall. Then you hear the sound of laughter and shrieks of children enjoying this God given gift of nature. You smile to yourself and feel so alive. You want to be part of nature; you want to feel the water breaking on your back – what a therapeutic massage, as it seems to fall from a never ending stream of water, like as if it was God, Himself watering upon you from the heavens. You slowly and carefully make your way to the edge of the stream and slide into the cold and cooling water. Aaahhh….what refreshing feeling! You immerse yourself in this gift of nature when suddenly…….

There’s still familiar smell, a stinky smell. And then you see streaks of reddish oil on the surface of the water beginning to stick to your skin, followed by the smell of dish washing liquid…WTF??? You look up and you see this arse of a person and a few of her older children washing their plates of mee hoon (fried rice noodles) and nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut milk and served with spicy sauce) and God knows what, in this clear, once clean and uncontaminated water!!!! So what do you do? You scrambled out of the water, is what you do!!! Sigh.

Where has the civic minded mentally gone? Where is the COMMON SENSE? Gone with the wind with the flowing water, is where it’s gone to. Out to the open sea and to add on to MORE water pollution. Like as if what we are facing is not already enough. Sigh. Yes, boys and girls, men and women…this is SO not the first time you’ve experienced it, have you? Or were you one of those arse ignorant ones washing your dishes and CLOTHES (Yes, some jokers ~NOT!~ do that too with complete soap powder and all.) in clean, clear flowing water? No need to pretend or turn the other way….you KNOW who you are. So listen up!

Put yourself in the shoes of that person who was enjoying the nice clean water and was suddenly attacked by this pong and then soap suds…how would you feel? Yes, I’ll admit that those at the bottom of the waterfall/stream are always the UN-lucky ones but that doesn’t have to be the case if people paid more attention to what they were doing and just use a FRACTION of the brain that God so willingly gave them, right? It’s PLAIN COMMON SENSE….

1. You DO NOT wash your dirty, oil laden plates and pans in a water source which is natural to a certain habitat and which is constantly flowing simply because it FLOWS. Don’t argue with me and say, ‘But it goes out to the open sea what…?’ *Slap on the head* So what?? Just coz it flows out to the open sea, you think it can bypass the people who are in the way is it? Plus it IS a form of pollution. And seriously, I could do without the extra oil in my hair.

2. You DO NOT wash your clothes with soap powder in a STREAM. Please refer to #1.

3. You also DO NOT brush your teeth nor LITERALLY bathe and scrub with yourself with your May/Pamolive/Dettol/Zest soap bar or shower gel in a stream ESPECIALLY if you’re at the top. No need to be so generous and share your soap suds with everyone. If I want suds, I’ll get me a bath tub. Thank you.

4. You DO NOT and SHOULD NEVER EVER EVER EVER throw non-biodegradable items such as plastic bags, forks, spoons, plates, bowls & cups into the stream/waterfall. They are NON-BIODEGRADABLE. If you do not know what that mean, let me educate you :

Biodegradable means capable of being decomposed by e.g. bacteria. Sooooo….non-biodegradable means exactly the OPPOSITE. It cannot be broken down by nature. If you still don’t understand, please come and see me, so I can shoot you.

Ok la, maybe you don’t know how bad these non-biodegradable stuff is, so here’s hoping that this table can help widen your eyes to saucepan size…This is generally how long it takes for some commonly used products to biodegrade, when they are scattered about as litter. Read em’ and weep.
(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradation)

As you can see, what some of you think is NORMAL or ok to do while you’re out picnic-king, is wrong not only to the other people around you but you’re indirectly killing your OWN future generation. Is that what you want for your children’s children and THEIR children? To one day live in a dumpster, a dumpster YOU help create. I’m not some environmental activists but I am concern for this ONLY earth I have and I definitely do my part in helping to protect what I can on the scale that I can. And you can too. This is not and will never be a one-man job as it requires EVERYONE to help be apart of this on-going effort keep our environment clean. You’ve heard about it, you’re read about it and maybe have even been apart of a clean up but its not enough and will never be enough if ignorant people carry on doing stupid and thoughtless acts as I have mentioned.

Next time you decided to spend some family time at the water fall or even by the sea, do :

1. Bring paper based utensils. A little discomfort can literally save the world. What is an hour or so of discomfort compared to a generation of suffering?

2. Bring back your pots and pans and wash them at home, where you’re suppose to. Water is not THAT expensive at home and you can wash in comfort too.

3. Bring back your clothes back and take your bathe at home where you can scrub all the spots (which I bet are quite a number) that you are highly likely to have missed if you were to bathe in public.

With that in mind, I hope to NOT get oil in my hair and stink of mee hoon the next time I go to a waterfall. *Keep fingers cross and pray that God will plant some wisdom in the new brains He has created.*