Refill Please

"May I have a refill please?", I asked the tenth shopkeeper. He looked at me with what I would like to call a cocktail of disbelief, disdain, distaste and a lot of other dis's. He would have told me no with another dis - disinterest, like the other 9 but I think he was kind enough to have a word with me and said, "son you won't find it anywhere." It did summarise my experience till now, but I had a perplexed look on my face. I had heard all sorts of answers like, "the company doesn't make refills" (made me wonder if I had magic pens?) to " sir the new pen is cheaper than the refill" (I was in half a mind to teach this guy some basic math and economics, but I didn't). The shopkeeper on seeing my dilemma said, "no one wants to keep it." I asked why not. He said its not worth the trouble. I asked him, "what should I do with the empty plastic tube that I have? I cannot even give it to some under privileged child, because its utter rubbish without a refill." He said he understood but that's the way it is. I moved on and gave up on finding the refill, but my mind was still on it. 

I am a conservationist by nature, of nature, (please side step the sad attempt of a pun). I try to reuse things as much as I can. I prefer minimalist design. In fact, when I travel on an airplane I prefer not using a tissue or prefer using the same plastic glass till the end of my trip. Even the air hostesses are surprised. But I don't see the point of wasting multiple glasses to drink apple juice. 

One friend of mine, whose intelligence I respect, recently made a comment that he didn't like a particular airline, because they asked him to save the glass for the whole trip. I am sure it was not statutorily mandated and they would have given him another glass in case he dropped it or something. But, I wouldn't mind hearing that and in fact I would applaud the airline, but apparently I am very lonely in feeling this. 

What I fail to understand is why are we turning into these monsters who want to just gobble gobble gobble. What's wrong in using a handkerchief instead of a tissue? Or a water spray instead of toilet paper? Or use the same plastic glass for a 6 hour flight? Nothing actually. We are intelligent humans. We have always respected nature and tried to use as judiciously little as we could. But we have changed. We have all changed. And I am not liking it. 

I think it's time we compel companies to make those cheap refills and reuse our cups. We have a lot of generations following us (hopefully)!! Let's save them a little. And now I am literally out of ink, so let me have a refill... Oops let me buy a new pen!!