I've never claimed that I could predict the future. I'm not one to read deeply into signs or find meaning in a coincidence. Perhaps that's why it took me so long to understand why I kept focusing on the garbage. The uncanny observation of my best friend didn't click at first. It was not until recently that I realized how significant and far-reaching the implications of this trend are.People who have never dined on the Kosher side of Sherman might have more trouble visualizing the scenario I'm about to depict, though I'll describe it as best I can.

When you're done eating, you need to return your tray, your plates, your utensils and your cups. To do this, you walk down a corridor adjacent to the food serving area and place your tray in one of two windows, depending on whether it is a meat or a dairy day. Next to the tray return windows are two large garbage cans. In a perfect world, these garbage cans are used to collect people's leftovers and trash before they return their trays. This, however, is not the case, as the garbage cans are filled almost entirely with paper napkins.

If you don't find this immediately shocking, it's OK. I am well aware that dirtied paper goods belong in the garbage. My issue is that's all you'll find in there. No tossed salads, no scrapped meat and no spilled milk. Granted, you're bound to find some food in the garbage, though that's a rarity. Most of the food is still on the trays. In the garbage, it's almost all napkins.

I've tried to think of every plausible scenario to explain why this happens, though few held water under close scrutiny. The only answer is that people only make an effort to throw away their napkins.

Though this epiphany is awesome, you may still be asking yourself, "So what?" It took me many trips to the tray return window to realize why we should care. The napkin trend shows not merely how we throw away our garbage, but how we view our obligations to the betterment of this world. By not disposing of anything except for the napkins, we are announcing to the world that we will apply the least amount of effort possible to free ourselves of responsibility.

If people are just throwing away their paper waste and nothing else, they are doing the barest of minimums. They tell themselves they are making an effort to help clean. They comfort themselves by saying that they are making the lives of the food service workers easier. Such people, though, are finding simple ways to lie to themselves so they don't have to do anything of significance.

In essence, the only burdens we are alleviating are our personal moral ones. We convince ourselves that we have helped, that we have improved the situation and that we have worked to make our tray, a microcosm of our community, a better place. But by doing so, we have only left our messes for others to clean, not really making their jobs any easier, even though it was originally our responsibility.

The fact is, it's pathetically easy to toss out the napkins. It takes no time at all. You don't have to stand over the garbage can, scraping away at your leftover waste. You don't need to get your hands dirty or risk making a mess. It's a cop-out way to make sure you can sleep soundly at night. And if we are this pitiful at cleaning up our own mealtime messes, I shudder to think about what that means for our future.

People can argue otherwise, saying that I'm overanalyzing how we throw out our garbage. But if people can't even take the time to do something as easy as cleaning up after themselves properly, why should I feel confident that they will do other things competently and correctly? Throwing away all the waste on your tray takes a few seconds more. Yet nearly all of us have fallen into the trend of leaving our garbage for someone else.

Does this mean that global pollution will be left for other countries to resolve? Are we going to say hunger is an issue for which others should pick up the slack? When are we going to step up and do not only what we feel we are morally responsible for doing, but also do what must be done? The world is a messy place and no solutions will present themselves without tireless effort and continuous work. No problems get solved if we only throw away our napkins.

The answer to this problem is not to throw away everything on our trays. Anyone who begins to just dump their garbage by rote has missed my point. I am not calling for cleaner trays or even less work for the kitchen staff (though that would not be a bad thing). I want people to think about their actions, not merely at the face value, but at a deeper, more critical level. We all know actions speak louder than words. I want people to listen to what their actions have to say.