Live Forever

“I want to live forever,” Environment Bug heard Sally, a six year old say to her friend Barbara.

“Really,” said Barbara. “I don’t think I would want to live forever.”

“Why not?” asked Sally.

“Well,” said Barbara. “What if you ended up being the only person alive on the planet?”

“What if there was no planet to live on?” asked Environment Bug, not wanting to scare the girls but wanting them to realize the importance the existence and future of our planet holds.

“Gee,” said Sally. “Those are really good points. Maybe I don’t want to live forever after all. I would like to live for a very long time though.”

“I think everyone would like that,” said Environment Bug.

“I know I do too,” said Barbara.

Sally was finishing a bag of potato chips that she shared with Barbara. She got up and put the empty bag into the garbage.

“Good girl, Sally,” said the Environment Bug proudly, when Sally went and sat down with her friends. “You know, if we all made even the tiniest effort, like what you just did, our planet would last just that much longer.”

Sally and Barbara made a concerted effort each and every day to put their trash in the garbage. If they saw their friends throwing their garbage on the lawns at school or in the park, they would ask them nicely if they wouldn’t mind putting their garbage in the garbage cans provided.

“Sally and Barbara,” said Environment Bug, a few weeks later. “I am so proud of you. You two have gotten most of your friends involved in cleaning up and I have had so many compliments at how nice the school yard and the park is looking.”

Sally and Barbara were just so pleased to be helping out. They wanted to do everything that they could to make it so that they may live even a day longer because their planet will have survived just that much longer.