Ode to Every Comb I’ve Ever Owned
A personal Earth Day fable inspired by Greta Thunberg.
Every comb I’ve ever owned showed up at my doorstep a couple of days ago. It was a sunny, crisp Spring morning in Indiana, and I had just stepped outside with my cup of coffee. There they were on the stoop, looking up at me expectantly.
“Good morning!” they shouted in unison.
“Uh, good morning,” I said hesitantly.
“We’ve missed you!” they said.
There was an embarrassing moment of silence as the sun gleamed off of my barren forehead. “I’ve, uh…I’ve been busy,” I said. There was more awkward silence. “Would you like some coffee?” I asked tentatively. “I just made a pot.”
“Yes, please!” they shouted, and they pushed past me into the house.
“Not me!” cried a tiny red comb my mother gave me when I was six. “Caffeine makes me hyper!” He bounced in after the others.
We crowded around my dining room table. There was more silence and the occasional slurping of coffee. My old bar mitzvah comb spoke first, “How have you been? We wanted to check up on you. Still studying Torah? Still going to services? Still singing? Still praying? Still playing video games?”
“Video games, no. Torah and services, sometimes. I teach religious school on Sundays.”
“I’m not surprised,” said a college comb that I lost somewhere in a classroom. “You did a lot of Jewish stuff in college. You spent a lot of time at the campus Hillel house. We had some good times. Are you still seeing that cute girl?”
“We’ve been married for nearly 30 years,” I said proudly. “And we have two kids. Both in college now.”
“Nice!” said one of my graduate school combs, the one I dropped on a hike in the mountains. “I knew it would work out. So, are you a professor now? Associate professor? Full professor?”
“Uh, none of the above,” I said sheepishly. “Academia didn’t work out for me. Didn’t happen that way. I got my PhD and I did…things. Various jobs. Explored options.”
“Things. Various. Options. Sounds, very professional,” he said thinly.
“I’m a Medical Science Liaison now,” I replied defensively. “It’s a well-paying job that uses my doctorate. I travel, I meet with doctors, I teach, and I discuss science.”
“And you look great,” a comb I lost in Omaha a couple years ago added quickly. “Have you lost weight?”
“Thanks for noticing,” I smiled. “20 pounds. Noom.” I stood up and turned around.
A different college comb dismissed me with a withering glance. “That’s AFTER 20 pounds? What did you look like before? Did you eat your former self?”
“Thank you!” I snapped at him. “Listen, what’s really going on here? Why are you here? What’s with the third degree?”
There was another moment of silence. “It’s about the planet,” said a comb I bought eight years ago before a job interview. “We want to talk to you about the planet.”
“It’s falling apart,” said Omaha comb. “Getting hotter. Climate change. Wild fires. Deforestation. Melting glaciers. People starving. All that. Yesterday was Earth Day. What did you do for Earth Day?”
I looked around nervously. “I, uh, well I watched the Greta Thunberg documentary on PBS. It was amazing. And I started my day with a green smoothie with soy milk, banana, mango, and spinach.”
“Wow,” my high school comb said sarcastically. “Sounds delicious. Did you flavor that with a sprinkle of self-importance?”
“Or a dash of moral superiority?” asked college comb number three.
“Or a soupçon of smugness?” added college comb number one.
“Or nutmeg?” piped up six-year old comb.
“Hey, leave him alone,” said grad school comb number four. “I’m proud of you for still being vegetarian. You’re still vegetarian, right?”
“Thirty years and still going,” I said proudly. “And I try to make as many vegan meals as possible these days. I do plenty for the planet. We recycle all our plastics.”
“Oh, great,” a comb I bought last year said snarkily, “that solves everything. Do you know how much plastic in recycling bins still ends up in landfills? When China’s Operation National Sword stopped the import of most foreign recyclable material, a lot of supposedly recycled materials went straight to the incinerator.”
“So, I shouldn’t recycle,” I said.
“That’s worse!” said a grad school comb. Right now, 91% of all plastic isn’t recycled at all. 79% of all plastic ends up either in landfills or litter. Eight million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year. And your own town, Indianapolis, is one of the most wasteful cities in the U.S. with only 7% of trash recycled.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s why we try to reuse a lot of stuff. Or, at least my son does. He’s become amazingly good at converting plastic bottles and cardboard into planters, trash bins, containers, stuff like that.”
“So, do you personally reuse everything?” a comb asked.
“Well…”
“Do you personally reuse anything?”
“Um…”
“And what’s that monstrosity you are driving?”
“What, my Ford Edge?” I asked defensively. “It’s a company car. I like it. And it is actually pretty fuel efficient. Up to 29 mpg on the highway.”
“Nice. But for the same money, you could get a hybrid car that gets up to 50 mpg on the highway. Or maybe get an electric vehicle which produces a third as much carbon dioxide as a gasoline-powered car.”
“Are you kidding,” I said. “I can’t afford an electric car.”
“Maybe not outright, but have you checked for tax incentives and rebates?” asked last year’s comb.
“I live in Indiana, not California,” I answered. “I don’t think we have any. But, I’ll check, if it will make you happy.”
“It won’t make me happy. It will make the planet happy. It will make your kids happy. It will make your eventual grandkids happy. You want that, right? And what about flying? You travel a lot, right?”
“Used to,” I said. “Pre-pandemic.”
“Do you fly?”
“I have to. Driving to Minnesota or North Dakota isn’t really an option.”
“Sure,” said a college comb,” but if the American Jobs Plan passes, $80 billion will go into repairing and extending Amtrak lines. You would be able to travel from Indy to Minneapolis by train. It might take 15 hours, but it already takes you at least five to six hours total to get there by plane. On the train, you can sleep, or read books, or catch up on scientific journals.”
“Humph,” I muttered.
“Or binge Netflix. Whatever. I mean, Greta Thunberg traveled back and forth across the Atlantic by boat, just so she wouldn’t have to burn airline fuel.”
“I’m not Greta Thunberg!” I spluttered. “And, I’m doing the best that I can.”
They were quiet, staring at me intently. A comb I bought after my second child was born spoke gently. “No one said you had to be Greta. You don’t even have to be Greta’s father, Svante. Although, have you seen his hair? All that thick, long, gray hair?” The combs sighed wistfully in unison. “The point is that no one is expecting you to do everything. We just want you to do a little more. Maybe one thing more.”
“Or five things more,” suggested a college comb.
“Or a billiondy things more,” said my six-year old comb.
“That’s not a real number,” my adolescent comb corrected disdainfully.
“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it,” quoted my bar mitzvah comb.
I smirked at him. “You’re quoting Pirke Avot at me? I teach this stuff to my fourth graders. Okay, I get it. I’ll try.”
“Make a pledge,” said one of them.
“What?”
“Make a pledge. Write it down now, while we are watching. Write it down and post it in your office. And then, every week, check to see how many things you’ve actually done.”
“OK.”
“Now!” they shouted at me. So, I hightailed it to my office and wrote five things down: one I would do next week, two I might do next year, and two more I probably wouldn’t ever get to at all. But my list was enshrined on a scrap of paper and taped to my computer. The combs gathered around me, bristles quivering excitedly.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” said my Omaha comb. “We’ll be back soon, you know, to check on your list.” I smiled at him weakly.
He leaned close to my ear, “Oh, a word to the wise. Next week, every shoe you ever threw away will be stopping by. And they’re kind of cranky. You might want to head out of town.”
My six-year old comb tugged at my pants leg and looked up at me. “Just don’t take an airplane,” he said.
