Apropos of absolutely nothing to do with writing, I just have to mention what I saw today at the supermarket: a child of perhaps seven or eight…old enough to know better…using a pencil to rupture those papery lids that cover individual yogurt containers.

Trailing behind Mama, he did a rapid-fire, stabbing as he trotted along.

Behavioral issues aside, with all the attention that’s paid to safety and the prevention of product tampering, why did they abandon the plastic lids for yogurt? I may be in the minority, but I don’t always want an entire 6 or 8 ounces of the stuff. Often I use it as a garnish on top of oatmeal, or a spoonful of the plain unflavored type as a substitute for sour cream.

I liked the plastic lids. I recycled the plastic lids. I reused plastic lids under tiny, little plant starts. (Never mind what’s under my grow light…that’s not the issue here.)

At the store, I called the boy’s mother’s attention to what he’d done.

She picked him up and ran.

And I reached as far back on the shelf as I could to select my yogurt from an area well out of reach of a tiny Jack The Ripper of the dairy section.