Rosie the Eco-Hero
by Michael Bugarin


    Rosie the eco-hero boldly strolled into chemistry class, the light reflecting off her one-hundred percent recycled hemp bag produced by a fair trade company located in an impoverished country in Central America.  She was crass.  She rode her bike to school on a regular basis.  She was defiant.  The bike was a fixie.  She didn’t have her homework because she would rather be part of the solution than the problem.
    She was early.  By arriving two minutes before the bell rang, she saved time in class.  Which, in turn, saved money.  Which in turn, saved enough time and money for a poor Bolivian village to buy a new well in their village so the women didn’t have to carry water inflected with diseases on their heads four miles there and back to feed their staving malnourished children.  She paid for all that in two minutes.  I’ll post that on my facebook page tonight she thought to herself.
    Mr. Joo made his rounds throughout the class, pacing up and down the aisles.  All the sophomores in the class were obediently copying the warm-up off the board and working on the problems, and the sound of thirty pens pressed against lined paper in unison gave a Mr. Joo a pleasant sensual feeling.  He smiled.  Then he stopped.  He stopped in front of Rosie, who was writing her warm-up on a miniature erasable white board.  He crossed his arms in front of Rosie until she looked up to him.  She was wearing Ray Ban Sunglasses.
    Mr. Joo sighed.  He took a deep breath and said, “you know I can’t grade that.”
    “Well Mr. Joo,” Rosie responded, returning to her whiteboard, “maybe if you weren’t a cog in the man’s machine then you would know that you are participating in the genocide of trees every time you make me turn in a warm-up sheet.”
    His face remained cold and motionless.  “So I take it you didn’t you didn’t do your homework.  Again.”
    She put the whiteboard down ant looked straight through her Ray Bans and into his eyes.  “Yes.  I took the worksheet you gave me and buried it in my backyard with coffee grounds and sunflower seeds so that some good could come of it.  And anyway,” she started again, “it isn’t like you graded any of the homework I’ve turned in last week.”
    “You wrote on tree bark.”
    “You know, if the Rostratseba people of southern Guatemala wrote you a message on their native tree bark, it means that they possess the highest respect for you.  It’s only the massive paper and ink conglomerates that have brain-washed us to think that tree-bark notes are not socially acceptable.”
    “It was covered in tree sap and dead ants.”
    “I drink free-trade tea.”
    “I didn’t ask you if you drank tea.”
    “I use natural honey to treat cuts, sweeten my granola cereal, and condition my hair.”
    “Why are you even in this class?”
    “Because if I can keep just one more lemming from jumping off the cliff by taking their place, I’ll do it.”
    Mr. Joo shook his head, turned around, and walked away.  Rosie continued to write on her whiteboard.
    For the next hour and a half the soft, sweet rolling sound of pen on paper by the thirty-four obedient sophomores kept Mr. Joo content as he taught the class, the ecstasy of which almost distracted him from noticing Rosie hacking away at a piece of tree bark or the glint of light reflecting off the top of her Ray Bans, flashing back and forth across his retinas as she readjusted the sunglasses every five minutes on the top of her hair like perpetually flashing neon billboard sitting in row four.  But it really didn’t bother him that much.  It wasn’t like he was obsessive compulsive or something.
    The bell rang, and in perfect rhythm the sophomores picked up their backpacks and left the classroom.  Rosie was the last to leave everyday, since she had to erase her whiteboard for her next class.  As she left, she turned to Mr. Joo, the light glinting off her Ray Bans.  “Same time tomorrow Mr. Joo?,” she asked.
    “Sure, Rosie.” he said. He smiled.  As she left, he took a hearty swig from his four-year old plastic water bottle.  So he wouldn’t waste plastic.  Or waste money on premium bottled water trucked across continents and sold at four-times the cost per gallon as gasoline.  Because Mr. Joo would rather be part of the solution than the problem.




 home