George Goes Green for Earth Day

George falls in love and learns a life lesson in going green on Earth Day.

George Murphy celebrated New Year's Eve, Super Bowl Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, and every weekend the same way, by guzzling cases of beer with his friends, while watching sports on his big screen TV. Able to afford the luxury, not really needing the few dollars he'd receive back from deposits, he never bothered to recycle any of the empty bottles and cans, because it was too much of a hassle. Then, the ultimate live-for-today consumer, non-renewable resource waster, and environmental abuser, George had an epiphany.

Being guilty of a carbon footprint the size of a large family, all that it took for George to stop his wasteful ways and go green was to fall in love with a woman. Yet, she wasn't just any woman. In the spirit of opposites attract, albeit one-sided in the attraction and that one side being George, she was the ultimate recycling, red, hot babe.

Call it was fate. Call it was kismet. Call it a match made in Heaven. Call it whatever you want. However described, as far as George was concerned, it all had the same resultant effect. He was head over heels in love.

It was love at first sight for George. It's amazing what the love of a good woman can do to a bad man, just as it's amazing what a desperate man will put himself through to win the heart of a sweet woman. Sadly, blinded by love, not looking beyond the mere physical appearance of her, George was unable to see the real person of his enamored affection. Had he seen the real her, had he taken the time to learn who she was and not be so blinded by her outward appearance, he may have realized from the start that they weren't compatible and she wasn't for him.

Certainly, no one on this Earth is perfect; we're all flawed, some of us even have fatal flaws. Then, there are those with flaws, that depending upon the person's perception of them, may not be flaws at all, but attributes. What some may consider as bad qualities, others may consider as good qualities. Yet, George, a very shallow man, wasn't looking that deep. He was just smitten by her amazing body and astounding beauty. By the look of her, who could have blamed him?

We all have imperfections, with some having more or less than others. Yet, it's in the differences, flaws or not, that not only make us human but also that make us endearing and uniquely different from one another. Unfortunately for George, for obvious reasons that he was too blinded by love to see, the love relationship he hoped to have with this woman was doomed to fail from the start. No matter what he did or didn't do, there was just no hope for poor George. Nonetheless, no one could tell George that there was no way that he could win the heart of this woman because he was intent to do just that, which is the premise of this story.

Unable to see beyond his total admiration of her, as if taking a giant eraser, his blinded gaze of love removed whatever flaws and incompatible differences the woman of his infatuated affection and lustful desire had. That's not to say that there was anything very much wrong with her to begin with anyway, other than she just wasn't suited for George as a lover, but more as a friend, albeit a friend without benefits. Had he looked closer and taken the time to know her better, he would have seen that she wasn't for him.

Knowing the women that George is attracted to, those with faces as beautiful as their bodies, certainly, judging her only from outward appearances, she was perfect and ideally suited for George, the ultimate babe magnet. On the surface with George being a handsome, albeit a very shallow man, they made for a beautiful couple. Yet, unbeknownst to George and alas, the woman of his love held a secret that would make it impossible for her to be attracted to him and for them to develop a romantic love relationship.

George's folly started when he first saw her at, of all places, the town dump. She was pedaling her bicycle and pulling a cart of recyclables behind her. She was wearing short, denim shorts and he first noticed her long, shapely legs, as she pulled up past the blindside of his parked truck on her bike. No doubt, most men's fantasy woman, she had the look of a woman who could surely grace the cover of Vogue or Maxim magazine.

She was the type of beautiful woman that, whenever she walked in a room and when you saw her, especially for the first time, you heard angelic music playing, as did George. She was the type of beguiling woman, who'd take your breath away at first look, again, as what happened to George. She was the type of mesmerizing woman, who'd make you stare, while wondering how to tell your wife and your children that you were suddenly and impulsively leaving them for another woman. One in a million, indeed, she was truly a sight to behold. Fortunately, without harboring the worry of a wife or the responsibility of children, George was single, a confirmed bachelor, a playboy, actually, and was free to make his move on her. Lucky him, only, not so fast.

Her beauty put him in a daze like trance and, while watching her, staring at her, actually, he imagined softly stroking her long, blonde hair away from her beautiful face with his fingertips, before taking her magnificent body in his arms, pulling her close, and kissing her full, red lips. He imagined her kiss being electric, all encompassing, life altering, and mind blanking. He visualized, that as soon as their lips touched, their attraction for one another would heat a blaze of passion that engulfed their love in fiery flames of forever fervor.

Sitting in his truck, while watching her, mesmerized by the sight of the physical beauty of her, unfortunately, he misread all what he imagined she was and all he hoped she'd be with his long, lustful look. Not taking the time to look beyond her physical beauty, what she looked like mattering more than any attribute or flaw she may have hidden from his lustful eyes, she was perfect. Mistaking the metallic sounds of the dump for wedding bells and mistaking seagulls for white doves flying overhead, without doubt, thinking of the sound of wedding bells and the sight of white doves, as omens, he thought, she was his wife to be.

The confirmed bachelor that he professed he was, he always told his friends, especially his married ones, that he'd never fall in love and he'd never marry. They all told him that he'd never know when, or where, or with whom, but that love will happen one day. They told him that, when he least expected it and was ill prepared for it, love would totally and unexpectedly catch him off guard. Then, just as they had said it would, love happened right there at the town dump. Who would have figured? They were right and he was wrong.

Finally, he found her. She was the one. Ready to forsake all others for her, he was ready and willing to settle down, commit to her, and abandon his bachelor ways for her. Only, she was oblivious to his love filled stare. As if he didn't exist, as if he was invisible, she paid him no never mind at all. She didn't even know he was there sitting in his truck and watching her every move with his lustful and love filled gaze, no doubt. Unaccustomed to being ignored by a woman, her inattention of him added to his desire for her. He figured, of course, that she knew he was there and was just playing hard to get. Well, two can play that game, only he couldn't, not with her. She was too beautiful to risk letting slide through his fingers by playing a silly game of cat and mouse or in this case desirable woman and lustful man.

He had never seen a woman as beautiful and his feelings of love suddenly turned to lust and back to love again, as if it was a tennis ball being returned volleyed. He imagined running his hands along the inside of her long, shapely legs, before feeling her firm, round buttocks gained, no doubt, from biking, while pulling that heavy cartful of glass bottles, old newspapers and heavy magazines, broken down cardboards, and rinsed out plastic bottles, odd shaped containers, and empty cans uphill to the dump. By the care she showed for the planet and in the personally symbolic effort she demonstrated by riding her bike all this way, instead of driving her car to tow a cart full of recyclables to the smelly dump, if this was any indication of the type of person she was, then she was totally in opposition to him. Still, willing to change for her, he was more than enamored with her.

He hadn't been on his, now, rusted bike in years. He only goes to the dump when he absolutely has to and even then, anxious just to rid himself of all his trash and garbage he's accumulated in his mad frenzy of buying excess quantities of bottles, cans, plastics, and cardboard, he mixes trash and garbage with recyclables dumping everything in the same green, trash bag. He doesn't recycle, has never recycled but, now that he sees she does, he will, that's for sure, if only as his meager way to impress her.

Only, to impress her and to win someone like her, he assumed, would take more than him separating recyclables from trash and garbage. For the love of her, he figured, he'd have to completely embrace her lifestyle as his own and change his wasteful ways for her economical ways. It had always been about looks for George and someone so boldly beautiful on the outside, who was equally as beautiful on the inside, he assumed, solely based upon the fact that she recycled, would ease his conscience and not make him feel like the shallow man that he truly is.

As if she was Medusa and had turned him to stone by him gazing upon her perfect being, frozen in place with unflinching awe, the presence of her immobilized him from getting out of his truck and hitting on her, which he'd typically do, whenever he saw a beautiful woman, of course. Suddenly lacking the confidence and self-assuredness he typically had, unnerved by the sight of her, he couldn't move; all he could do was stare. Afraid to alight from his truck for fear that he'd startle his beautiful butterfly and she'd fly away, he watched her from afar.

He took her all in, while still imagining what it would be like to be with her, to talk to her, to hold her, to kiss her, and to make love to her. With the hot sun wafting foul odors of rotting garbage outside his air conditioned truck, he wondered what she smelled like and imagined she had a fragrance of honeysuckle, heather, roses, and vanilla. He imagined her voice being as soft as marshmallow fluff, as sweet as honey, and as smooth as aged whiskey and sounding like Heavenly music to his ears. She was perfect, so very perfect.

She wore a tight, white tank top over her braless breasts and he could see the impressions her nipples made in the thin material. Her breasts beckoned him, begging him to touch them, feel them, and caress them, before taking them in his mouth and sucking them. With his lips already pursed and positioned, as if a goldfish or a baby at feeding time, with the thoughts of sucking her nipples, he imagined removing her shirt and being surprised by how much bigger her breasts were, when not being so confined and so squished by the body conforming material of her, oh, so tight and revealing tank top. He imagined his hands were already all over the image that his leering eyes fed his horny brain of her imagined magnificent, naked body.

She was his sex Goddess and he was her testosterone filled God. She was his beautiful Queen and he was her virile King. So long as he had a chance at bedding her, she'd be his lover and he'd be her forever man.

Having lived here most of his life, he never knew that someone like her existed in this small town. Where has she been hiding all his wasted life? He's never seen her before. Maybe she just arrived and relocated from somewhere exotic, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, or Denmark. Surely, someone as tall, as blonde, and as beautiful as she absolutely is, must have been born somewhere like that, instead of somewhere God forsaken like this.

Then, again, with his entertainment requirements bordering on basic, if not tacky, vulgar, actually, other than sporting events, extreme cage fighting matches, nightclubs and bars, and the gentlemen's entertainment of striptease shows and lap dances, he's never seen the inside of a museum or an art gallery nor attended a ballet or symphony concert. Now that he knows she comes here to deposit her recycling, on the pretense of recycling his trash, if only for the sake of meeting her and spending time with her, he'd spend more time at the dump, every day, if that's what it took to accidentally on purpose run into her again.

"Oh, hello," he imagined saying to her, after accidentally on purpose bumping into her, while pretending his chance meeting wasn't planned. "I'm George. My friends call me Global George because I care so much about recycling and about saving the planet from global warming."

A bicycle helmet covered the top of her beautiful, blonde head and her long, flaxen hair that streamed out and down, and that blew in the soft breeze, so much like shiny ribbons of white, yellow, and gold hanging from a Maypole. Looking so much like a model in a shampoo commercial, her hair was so long and so lush that he wanted to reach out and touch it, caress it, smell it, and brush it. He hadn't seen anyone so beautiful, since he watched the movie 10 with Bo Derek, when he was just a kid and the first time he saw Heidi Klum walk a modeling runway.

When compared to Cindy Margolis, his all time extreme sexual fantasy favorite, this beauty before him would make her look like a five on his imagined babe scale of ten. Then, when she stopped her bike and got off and removed her helmet, she shook her head in the way that reminded him of Jennifer Beals doing, as Alex Owen, in Flash Dance, but without the water, without the music, and without the dancing. Watching her shake, imagining her in bed with him, quivering after having a mutual orgasm at the same exact moment, the best imagined sex he's ever had in his very experienced sexual life, with a sudden rush of goose bumps, he shook his body with her. After watching her, even though he didn't smoke, has never smoked, he felt the need for a cigarette.

That was when he suddenly imagined her wet from taking a naked dip and emerging from the deep end of his pool naked. With her body moving in sections, he envisioned her slowly walking toward him, while shaking her head and her hair in the way of a beautiful and graceful dog, an Afghan hound, after having swam in the cool, clear, blue water. He imagined her emerging from the bath, the shower, or from the ocean, after having made love with him. He imagined her returning to have sex with him, after having cooled off, but wanting to be heated up, again and again, with him being more than willing to oblige her every sexual desire and wanton need.

Truly, she was a remarkable beauty. Who knew driving to the dump and recycling, not that he was recycling anything at all, but she was recycling enough for the both of them, could be so sexually erotic? After all these years, he had been looking for love in all the wrong places. After all these years, he's been with the wrong type of woman. After all these years, he finally found her.

Much like Jamie Conway in Jay McInerney's novel, Bright Lights, Big City, all this time, he had been leaving his small town, forsaking the charm of easy living for the non-stop, late night excitement of the big city, when she was here waiting for him all along. Instead of the smell of freshly baked bread returning him to the familiarity of home, the pungent aroma of the smelly dump returned him to his senses. Now, given the reason to stay here instead of wandering from home looking for love, love was already here.

Now that he saw her, he couldn't help but wonder about her. Surely, someone so beautiful couldn't be so perfect. What's wrong with her? There must be something wrong with her. Surely, someone so beautiful has a flaw, a fatal flaw, but what? Only, he didn't care. Whatever is wrong with her, he'd deal with it. Certainly, that's the price he'd have to pay to have her, someone so amazingly beautiful, in his life and he was willing to take all the good with the bad, whatever was her sad story.

Maybe she's a murderer or a foreign spy. Maybe she's was born a man and has had a sex change operation done by a gifted surgeon, a mad doctor, who made her look how no woman should and could ever look without the help of modern science and DNA genetic alterations. Maybe she's a medical doctor or someone with a PhD in something, astrophysics or philosophy, perhaps, and is someone who'd never be interested in someone as cerebrally inferior and as mentally challenged, as he surely is. Yet, what did it matter? Whatever it is, he'd make her fall in love with him.

He wondered if she was married. He wondered if she had kids. He wondered if she had a boyfriend. He wondered if she was married, had kids, and had a boyfriend. He wondered if she was available for sex and/or for love. He wondered if she'd be as instantly and insanely attracted to him, as he was obviously so instantly and insanely charmed by her.

Wanting to get a closer look at her, wanting to engage her in conversation, and wanting to confess his love for her, after imagining getting her in bed naked with him, he alighted from his truck and grabbed the green plastic bags from in back of his truck. Just as he had hoped and expected she would, she turned to look at him and when she did, he smiled at her. Only, she turned to look at him not for love, but when the bottles and cans, that were mixed in with the trash and garbage of his green plastic trash bags, made an alarm like noise that told the world and confessed to her that he didn't give a care about saving the planet and was guilty of not recycling.

He felt like such a sleaze, a lowlife, a loser, and a planet plunderer, when she stabbed him in his heart with her sour look of disappointment. He wanted to apologize for not recycling. He wanted to tell her that the bags belonged to someone else and had been discarded along the side of the road and that he had stopped his truck to pick them up to bring them here, but as quickly as she looked at him, she looked away with distain. He read her look of displeasure, and as if he was a recycled beer can, he was so crushed. By not recycling, he had displeased her and by not even giving him a chance to redeem himself, she sized him up and discounted him with a brief look. Before it began, it was over. Before he even had a chance, she rejected him.

With the hope for wedding off, it was over. He was done. Now, he'll never get her naked in his bed. Now, he'll never have children with her, children named Sierra, Cheyenne, and Sky, certainly not his choices in names for children, who'd grow into bullied adults because of their names, but the names that he imagined she'd want to name them. Yet, what did the proposed names of their children matter? It was just a name and, as far as he was concerned, she could name his children anything, so long as he could have children with her.

As he had been hit by love at first sight, she showed him no such look of love, of romance, and of interest, even, in him. Not imagining her disinterest could be him and how he looked, he thought her disinterest was by his inactions and total disregard in not doing his fair share to save the planet. By not recycling his bottles and cans, he had ruined his chance with his princess of desire and his queen of hearts. Now that she knows he doesn't recycle, someone like him, a wasteful user and an uncaring abuser, would never have a chance with a preserver of the ecology and a conserver of the environment.

After he dumped his bags of garbage, with his thoughts as dark as were his hands dug deep in his pockets, he walked back to his truck with shame and sadness. Feeling his heart already breaking and his soul aching, the impression she already made on his mind was forever imprinted there. For him, without doubt and without reservation, it was love at first sight. Now, after having laid eyes upon her, he knew he'd forever be preoccupied with the thoughts of her in his life, as his wife, as the mother of his children, and as his forever lover.