If only you knew more of what I do for the environment, you'd understand!

I try to be nice to the environment. We use organic products in our yard and garden, I clean with old socks and t-shirts instead of paper towels, I buy large containers of food and repack it into smaller reusable containers myself, I buy environmentally-friendly cleansers, I recycle, I occasionally ride my bike to the grocery store, I don't drive over 65 mph to get better gas mileage, I turn off the dishwasher when it hits the dry cycle...

But this week, I - consciously - decided to be less environmentally-conscious by buying pre-packaged fruit cups and juice boxes to easily pack Kevin's lunch for nature camp since I'd like the summer off from the ugh-inducing task of packing a healthy, filling and environmentally-sensitive lunch and this one week didn't seem to be a big deal. In fact, I smiled as I pulled the shrink-wrapped package of 10 foil-lined juice boxes off the sale shelf at Giant on Sunday, imagining myself plopping a box in Kevin's lunch box and quickly moving on to the rest of my day.

Yesterday morning I dropped Kevin off for his first day of nature camp. The counselor who checked him in gave me a piece of paper and said, very politely, "We're trying to have the kids eat trash-free lunches this week. On this paper are some tips for doing that like using re-usable plastic containers instead of foil and plastic bags and bottles of water that can be refilled..."

Thank you for raining on my easy-pack-lunch parade.