This morning, I noticed a tube of Mustardseed lip gunk laying near the gutter in the street in front of the office. I work in a beautiful old town house in a pretty sketchy part of the city that I lovingly think of as Murderville, just east of Rapetown. As soon as I spotted the bright orange of the cap on the lip gunk, I knew immediately that it was mine. I haven’t seen it at the bottom of my bag in ages, and who, in that neighborhood, would drive all the way out to Mustardseed in Solon for expensive produce and vegan lip gunk, anyway?

I was strangely pleased that I found something of mine randomly rolling around in the street. I felt like I’d made my mark on the city somehow. It knew I was here, and it knew that my lips were remarkably well-conditioned.

Then, as I was about to pick the tube up off of the street, I felt guilty for just *assuming* that it was mine. I mean, how arrogant am I just to assume that I am the only one in that neighborhood who has lost that particular brand of lip gunk, anyway? Perhaps someone else lost their lip gunk!

I spent a good minute or two trying to decide whether or not I should pick up the lip gunk. On the one hand, I’m all about cleaning up litter. On the other, I’d hate to steal someone else’s lip gunk. And on the off chance that it really is *my* lip gunk, can I really use lip gunk that I recovered from the gutter? Do I throw it away? Is this wasteful? And why do my lips feel so chapped all of a sudden?

Paralyzed with indecision, I went into the office and figured that I’d take action at the end of the work day, when I’d had a few cups of coffee in me and could think more clearly. In my haste to leave the office and get to class on time, however, I failed to notice whether the lip gunk was still in the street. But now, listening to this professor drone on and on about……nonconforming uses of land…all that I can think about is that tube of lip gunk.

And *that* is the best way I have of telling you how boring this class is.